Hellbound
by Nylah
Summary: A serial killer is on the loose in Amity Park. Danny gets involved when he stumbles over one of the victims. One of the detectives comes dangerously close to discovering his secret...
1. Prologue

A/N: I can´t believe I´m doing this but here it is. My first fanfic, in fact first time I´ve written anything ever. Except for school that is. I am actually very pleased with it myself but I´m sure you have something to say about it so please do.

Ok, here goes. This goes on in my crazy mind when I´m daydreaming.

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

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Prologue

Detective Michael Foley pulled up his car along side the road and got out, breathing in the sweet summer air. He wiped the sweat of his brow and cursed the broken air conditioning. The sun was shining down mercilessly, reflecting on his car windows and causing stars and stripes in his eyes. He sat on the hood and closed his eyes. His headache eased somewhat. Then he shivered, something cold seemed to touch him momentarily, gone instantly. His eyes shot open and he jumped up but there was nothing there.

"Don´t let this get to you," he muttered to himself, rubbing his eyes.

Then he looked at his dark skinned hands, the same hands that had almost strangled Earl Turner. But that didn´t matter now. Turner was dead, executed only a few hours earlier, and that was the end of the long nightmare.

He had watched as they strapped the murderer down in the chair. Several others were present too but their faces remained vague in his memory. Turner had seemed calm at first, dazed almost. Then he had looked up, straight at Mike Foley. Mike had made the mistake of looking directly into those dark, merciless eyes. Unconsciously he had taken a step back and Turner had smiled. Mike´s trance was broken when they put the black cap on him, covering his face.

He shifted his feet through the dirt at the side of the road, producing a small cloud of dust. He had been driving for four hours straight, getting away from the city and it´s oppressive heat, it´s uncaring people and it´s criminals. He needed a vacation, which is why he had accepted his cousins invitation to come visit him. A nice, small town with clean air and nice people, at least that was what his cousin had boasted when he ran into him accidentally two weeks before. Way better than the city. Well, right now anything seemed better than that.

He got up and pushed the memory of Earl Turner to the back of his mind. He entered his car and turned the key. Slowly he drove away, leaving a dust cloud. He smiled as he passed a sign reading Amity Park 50 M´, and never saw the two angry red eyes in his rear view mirror.


	2. Lazy days

A/N: Edited 4/8/2007. I am going through the chapters, correcting the punctuation and making it easier to read by separating the dialogue from the narration. So bear with me, I'm not going to do this all at once.

Disclaimer: I don´t own Danny Phantom

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Lazy days

Three teenagers were sitting on the beach, in the shade of a huge parasol. The two boys were lazily eying the cold water, working up courage to get in and cool off some of the heat. The sea was calm. The dark skinned boy was holding a frisbee and was idly flipping it in his hands, occasionally throwing it up in the air and catching it again, untill he missed.

"Ouch", the other boy yelped as the thing bounced of his head. He turned sidewards and glared at his friend with ice blue eyes.

"Watch it Tucker," he said.

Tucker grinned, "Sorry".

"Why don´t you guys go cool off in the water," the girl said.

She had a huge black hat on her head and was sitting under a black and purple towel. Tucker jumped up.

"Good idea, come on Danny, race you," and he sprinted towards the sea.

Danny turned his head backward, his eyebrows raised, his face forming somehow a big question mark. "Sam?" he said. Sam shook her head. "Your loss."

He got up, ran to the water and splashed right into it, in front of Tucker who had stopped at the edge of the water to carefully dip his toe in.

"Aaaarch," he yelled and jumped backwards.

"Come on Tuck I thought you wanted to swim," Danny yelled from the water, shaking his head to clear the water from his black hair.

He swam a couple of strokes and then turned to his back and drifted some.

"Yes but I like to take it slow," Tucker said indignantly.

At that moment he felt a push in his back and he stumbled forward, falling into the water face first. Sam laughed so hard that her side hurt. She had ditched the hat and the towel, revealing a black (what else) bathing suit. Danny looked at her laughing and then looked at Tucker who was now on his knees in the water, totally wet. They grinned at each other. Danny quickly swam to where he could stand and started running out of the water, as Tucker slowly got up. They reached Sam at the same time.

"NO!" she screamed, "Nononono!"

But the boys had a head start and managed to grab her in the momentum. They dragged her to the water and the three of them fell forward with a big splash. After that they played around in the water some more. Sam managed to pull Tucker under water a couple of times but she couldn´t catch Danny who quickly swam away from her each time she tried to approach him.

"Hey," she yelled, "Since when can you out-swim me anyway?"

"Dunno, maybe you got slower?"

She started swimming towards him again and he let her approach this time and pull him under. And stayed under. He let himself sink to the bottom of the murky water and transformed into Phantom with a bright flash, which he hoped wasn´t visible from the surface, so he didn´t have to breathe.

Sam floated, waiting. One minute passed, two. She turned around, scanning the surface, willing Danny to come up.

"Where are you," she muttered, "Come on Danny this isn´t funny..."

Another minute passed. Tucker was calling her from the shore but she didn´t pay attention to him. Then suddenly the water around her turned even colder and she started shivering. Something tickeled her feet. There was a dimmed white flash just beneath the surface and Danny burst through, gasping for air.

"Danny this is so not funny," Sam screamed at him.

"Aw come on Sam you knew I would´t drown," Danny grinned, closing in on her.

Sam glared at him, "You could have hit your head for all I knew".

He was very close now, smiling. Suddenly his hart was pounding in his chest. She looked nice with her hair all wet, drops of water hanging from her eyelashes. He drifted a little closer, staring into her purple eyes. She stared right back.

"Hey," Tucker yelled from the shore, "Get a room."

Danny and Sam both blushed and quickly turned away from each other to swim to the shore.

Later that day they went to Tucker´s house for the barbecue. It wasn´t any special occasion, just a friendly get together with some neighbours and friends. Danny, Sam and Tucker sat in a corner in the back yard with some other kids, goofing around and eating their meat. Or in Sam´s case, a veggie burger the Foleys had prepared especially for her.

"I love barbeques," Tucker said, "So much meat!"

Sam scowled at him. Ashley Summers, one of Tucker´s neighbours, nudged Danny and pointed at his father.

"So that is the famous ghost hunter," she said to him, smiling, "He´s your dad right?"

"Yup," Danny said, looking at the blonde girl next to him, "Don´t let him start about ghosts. You´ll never get away. He is the only person I know who can actually bore you to death and then dissect your ghost." He said it with a smile, not revealing the fact that the idea really terrified him.

Danny looked around at the other people. He recognized some of the Foley´s neighbours and of course his parents. A large man was talking to his mother, complaining about taxes. She looked bored. His father was standing close to the table that contained the salads and the bread, talking to a man Danny didn´t recognize. He was a tall black man, about forty, who was leaning against the table, looking around for an escape. Danny smiled. His dad was probably talking about ghosts.

"Hey, who is that?" he asked Tucker, putting another piece of bread in his mouth.

Tucker looked in the direction Danny poited.

"Dunno," he said, a puzzled expression on his face, "Oh wait, that is probably my dad´s cousin. He mentioned him the other day, apparently he ran into him in Chicago and invited him here because he is going through a divorce or something. Don´t know how long he will be staying".

At that moment Tuckers father called Tucker over to him. Danny watched as Tucker was introduced to his father´s cousin, effectively saving him from Jack Fenton. They talked for a short while and then Tucker returned to his friends.

"Yep, that´s him alright", he said, sitting down again, "His name is Mike, and he is a cop in Chicago. He is staying for two whole weeks, so until the beginning of the school year. He seems like a pretty cool guy."

At that point Danny´s ghost sense went off. Danny got up, mumbling some excuse about going to the bathroom and ran into the house. Once out of sight, he transformed quickly, went invisible and intangible, flew through the roof out of the house, and looked around. Nothing to be seen, but he felt the ghost was near. The people were still chattering aimiable in the garden, oblivious.

He saw Tucker and Sam look up, trying to locate him and he briefly went visible to show himself, his bright green eyes sparkling. Sam smiled at him and got up. She casually walked to her bag that held her beach stuff and retrieved the thermos she always carried with her. Danny circled above the house and the garden, looking intently at the shadows formed by the house, the fence and the trashcans. And that is where he saw some movement.

* * *

The spirit, or ghost what was he, drifted behind some trashcans, watching the people mingle happily at their party, unaware of him. Could they even see him? He didn´t think so, twice somebody passed him and they hadn´t noticed him. Of course he was in the shadow behind the trashcans but somebody could easily have spotted him. He could see he was translucent, and it was freaking him out. He was _floating_. He coudn´t touch anything and he could see _through his hands_! It was very unnerving and he felt unhappy.

Suddenly he heard a voice behind him. He turned around in fright and watched a boy float towards him.Wait, float? He was floating, like him! He had white hair and bright, glowing green eyes that looked at him warily. He wore some black and white hazemat suit and looked very... ghostly.

"I said, what are you up to", the ghost boy repeated, his fists glowing green in preparation of a fight.

The ghost behind the trashcans backed away, through the trashcans, then turned around and fled around the corner of the house, right into something warm... wait, warm?


	3. Concerning ghosts

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

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Concerning ghosts

Danny watched the ghost flee and quickly followed him but as he rounded the corner into the garden it was nowhere to be found. Of course his parents chose that moment to check on their ghost detectors and were screaming "Ghost" at him before he had the sense to turn invisible again. Danny rolled his eyes and quickly dove into the house and turned back into Fenton, just before his parents burst into the room.

"Danny did you see the ghost," his father bellowed at him, swaying a Fenton Bazooka.

"Hi sweetie," his mother said, "don´t worry dear we´ll get him, did you see him come through here?"

"Uh, ye-yeah mom I th-think he went that way", Danny stuttered, pointing randomly at the front of the house.

His parents rushed out, leaving Danny to wipe the sweat of his brow. That was just too close for comfort. He returned to the garden and the excited people there, exclaiming things like "did you see that? That was a ghost! And not just any ghost, it was Phantom at that! What was he doing here?"

Then he bumped into someone and spilled his plate and drink. The man started scolding him and Danny moved away quickly, muttering, "Sorry Mr Brennig, I didn´t see you." Quietly he made his way back to his friends.

Mike Foley stared incredulously at the house the strange looking boy had just disappeard in. Through the wall. He shivered, and then turned to his cousin.

"WHAT was THAT?"

Maurice looked at him apologetically. "I guess I should have warned you," he said, "We have a lot of ghosts in this town."

"_Ghosts?"_

Maurice Foley shrugged, and looked around. Jack and Maddie Fenton had disappeared, but Danny sat with his son in the corner, eating his meat and generally ignoring the excitement. He beckoned Mike to follow him and walked to the group of teenagers and younger children sitting aimiably together.

"Danny," he said, "I´d like you to meet my cousin from Chicago, Mike Foley. Mike, this is Danny Fenton, son of Jack and Maddie, whom you´ve met before. They are ghost hunters and are obviously chasing that ghost but I think Danny can fill you in just as well...Danny, would you?"

Danny got up and wiped his hand on his trousers before shaking Mike´s hand.

"Pleased to meet you," he said and then waved at the girl next to him as she and Tucker got up as well, "This is Sam Manson."

Sam shook Mike´s hand. "What do you want to know," she said, "I guess between the thee of us we could answer almost any question you might have."

Mike looked at them. They seemed totally unfazed by the ghost incident. In fact they looked a bit smug, as if they knew something about it and weren´t sharing the information. He always noticed that kind of thing, which made such a good cop.

"Well," he said, "if you would have asked me five minutes ago, I would have said there is no such thing as a ghost, but I know what I saw. That boy was _floating_ and he went _through_ the wall for God´s sake."

"Yeah, well," Danny said, "that was D.. Phantom. He is a ghost but he is actually a good guy because he keeps all the evil ghosts out of this town."

The boy was rubbing the back of his neck, Mike noticed, probably some nervous gesture. Why was he nervous? And what did he almost let slip before he changed the word to ´Phantom´?

Danny felt nervous under Mike Foley´s gaze. The guy was a cop, and he had the feeling he could see straight through him. He felt it was safer to leave his first name out of his alias because he was sure Mike Foley would notice the similarity to his own name instantly. He hoped the guy hadn´t had a good look at him when he was Phantom.

"So what about all these ghosts?" Mike asked, looking at him critically.

"Danny´s parents have a ghost portal to the ghost zone," Sam cut in, "sometimes ghosts escape from there and haunt the town. Actually most ghosts don´t do anything but scare people but some are more dangerous. Phantom catches them and puts them back where they belong."

Mike looked pensive. "A ghost portal. Isn´t that dangerous? What with all those ghosts escaping?"

"Actually a lot of ghosts don´t need the portal to escape, there is an natural weakness in the boundary between the real world and the ghost zone in this town," Danny answered, "And the ghost portal has a pretty solid door to it with a genetic lock so only my family can open it."

They continued for a while, filling Mike in on the different ghosts that frequented the town.

"And this Phantom guy? How does he fit in?"

Mike studied the threesome before him. They looked pretty close, supplementing each other with information easily, exchanging looks as signals to each other. They were weighing each word they said to him, trying to divert his attention from... whatever they wanted his attention diverted from. He had no clue as to what it could be. The leader of the pack seemed to be Danny, his friends took their cue from him.

He wondered about that, the boy looked nervous and scrawny, but otherwise disgustingly normal. That Manson girl seemed to be the strong one, both physical and mental. She wore the gothic look with pride, defying anybody to object, turning people away with her scowl. Tucker obviously was the techno nerd of the three, fiddling his PDA unconsciously while he was talking. What kept those three teens, who were obviously very different from another, together? Then he looked a bit closer at Danny, and noticed that underneath the wide t-shirt and the baggy pants he hid lean muscle. The boy was a lot stronger than he looked, and he was trying to _hide_ it.

Danny started rubbing the back of his neck again and then noticed his own nervous gesture. He willed his hand down, hoping the cop hadn´t noticed.

"Phantom is... special," he said, "He is the one who actually catches a lot of the more malevolent ghosts. So I guess that makes him the good guy in a sense. But not everybody thinks so. Things have...happened that make him look bad."

He now feverishly wished the guy would leave them alone, this man was much to sharp. The questions he asked were right to the point and he seemed to be able to let them talk more than they wanted to. Danny couldn´t shake the feeling the cop knew they were up to something. He could only hope the guy didn´t link him to Phantom. At that, Jack and Maddie returned from their fruitless ghost hunt and walked over to the three friends and the cop.

"Hi sweetie, having fun still?" Maddie asked Danny brightly, "Oh hello Mike, Maurice said you wanted to know about ghosts!"

Mike took a step back, looking warily at Jack, "Yes well your son and his friends have been filling me in already," he said.

Danny looked amused.

"What?" Maddie said surprised, "Oh Danny has no interest in ghosts do you honey. Come along now, we will tell you everything we know."

Mike looked back at Danny as he was dragged away and saw a smirk on his face. And something else too. Was that relief?


	4. Possessed

A/N: I had a lot of fun writing this one. It´s a bit short though. Many thanks to my reviewers!

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom

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possessed

The ghost that was once Earl Turner made himself as small as possible in his host. He didn´t want to be detected and didn´t want to be found by that ghostly boy with the green eyes. He wondered if his host knew he was there, he felt him shiver a couple of times. For a while he was content by just being there, moving around with his host, listening to people talk.

At one point he heard a loud voice blabbering about ghosts and he paid close attention to that, because allthough he was a ghost himself he really didn´t know much about them. He learned that all ghosts were basically evil and should be hunted down and ripped apart ´molecule by molecule´. Earl thought that sounded disgusting. Then he chuckled to himself, as he realized the guy talking had no idea that a ghost was hiding in the person he was talking to.

He lost track of time after that, lost in his own thougths for a while. He was a ghost. Ghosts were what, ectoplasmic manifisations of unfinished business? So he had unfinished business. He started chuckling again. Unfinished business indeed. He hadn´t finished his quest. They had interfered. _He_ had interfered. Earl spent some time thinking very dark thoughts about the cop who had finally managed to catch him.

He had been there at his execution, looked him straight in the eyes. Earl hadn´t been able to see him through the darkened glass window, but he had _known_. Somehow he had known he had been looking at him. The cop had actually stumbled backwards when he realized. That had struck Earl as very funny and he had laughed. He had been laughing when they had put the cap over his head, covering his face and he was still laughing when the electricity went through him, killing him. No, not killing him, making him different. Better. He could see that now. He felt like laughing again, but caught himself just in time. No reason to let his host know he was there. Yet.

After a while the hidden ghost noticed it had quieted down, the sound of chatting people gone. He felt his host moving around, picking things up, humming to himself. It was a shame he could not see what was going on, only hear. Then he wondered. Carefully he reached out, touching the host´s brain tentatively. His host gave a violent jerk and jumped up, wide eyed and panting.

Earl quickly pulled back and waited for his host to calm down. Wich he did eventually, convincing himself it was nothing, he had imagined it, that cold finger that had touched him in the back of his skull. Earl felt his host getting up and then lying down, putting out the light. He waited untill he felt his host´s body relax. Then he waited some more, untill he was absolutely sure he was asleep.

Again Earl reached out to his hosts brain. No reaction. He reached some more, trying to gain control somehow. And then he was there. He was the host. Now that was almost too easy. Slowly he opened his eyes. He was in a room, by himself. It was dark, so it must be late. Quietly he got up and looked at the alarm clock standing on a small table beside the bed. It was almost twelve o´clock.

He stood there for a while, unsure of what to do and then noticed the guys clothes on a chair by the window. He walked over and dressed quickly. Then he saw the mirror on the wall and peered into it. He was looking at his host´s face in the dark. He coudn´t help himself. He started to laugh. He managed to do it quietly though, he didn´t want to wake the other people in the house, if there were any.

Then he looked in the mirror again, at the face of his host with glowing red eyes. His own eyes.


	5. Sleepless

A/N: Sorry, I kept changing the genre because this story kept changing on me. But I´m almost done now, so no more surprises (I hope). I´m uploading this early because I won´t have time tomorrow and the last chapter was kind of short. Hey, you know what, I might even upload the next chapter on Friday if I get some reviews...

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

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Sleepless

Danny couldn´t sleep. It was too warm in his room, even though the window was open to let in the cool night air. To Danny it felt warm. Ever since the accident with the ghost portal his parents and sister had complained to him about his room temperature, stating it was way to cold. Danny, with his lowered body temperature, liked the cold. Summer was nice and all, but in his opinion just too hot. Especially when trying to sleep. At last he just gave up, rolled out of his bed and walked to his window. He looked up at the sky.

It was a clear night, he could see the stars, even though he was half blinded by the light from the huge neon sign on his house, reading ´Fenton Works´. Maybe he would have a better view way up in the sky.

He concentrated for moment, reaching for that cold spot in the back of his mind. Two white rings appeared around his waist, splitting. One traveled upwards, the other down, changing the black-haired, blue-eyed boy into his alter ego, Danny Phantom. He took off through the window and quickly gained altitude, leaving the dormant town far below him, until the lights were just pin pricks. He looked up in the sky, floating on his back, his hands behind his head.

"Now this is a nice view, Sam should see this," he thought and then blinked. Where did that come from? "Sam and Tucker should see this," he corrected himself.

He looked down again. The town looked really small from here, peaceful. No ghost activity to be seen either, although he didn't know if he would be able to sense them from this altitude. He sighed, looked up one more time and then slowly descended to the ground.

He should check on his friends, he decided, see if they were, um, sleeping safely and all. He let himself drift to Sam's house first because her's was closer, obviously. He looked at the drawn curtains of her window in the big mansion. Just one look, to see if she was alright.

He went invisible and intangible and peeked his head through the wall. It was very dark inside here room, but he could see perfectly well. She was on her bed, on her stomach, her black hair sprawled across the pillow. One bare arm hung beside the bed, her legs were covered only with thin sheets. She was wearing a purple tank op.

He studied her face. Wait, was she drooling? He chuckled, wishing he brought his camera. Then he smacked himself, no duh, if he took a picture she would know he had been in her room at night and would kick his ass. Not to mention that he wouldn't hear the end of it from Tucker. He sighed, looked at her one more time and pulled his head back through the wall.

He headed for the park next, to find a place where he could sit down and think. More and more, random thoughts about Sam had popped up in his mind lately, and he was confused. She was his best friend, he shouldn't be thinking about her that way. He looked around the deserted park and landed near the swings. He sat down on one, hooking his arms around the ropes and letting his feet drag across the ground.

He knew he was sitting in plain view of the houses at the edge of the park, standing out in the dark with that ghostly glow he had. But everybody would be sleeping, and people were sort of used to ghosts by now. He only hoped Valerie wasn´t around.

He pushed back a bit and let himself swing for a while. He remembered coming here when he was little, even then only having two close friends. The same ones he had now. Things weren´t as complicated then, they could joke and laugh and fool around then without looking for double meanings.

He really didn´t want to lose them. And lose them he would if he started tampering with their unique bond of friendship. So if he wanted to think about girls, it had better be other girls, like for instance Paulina. He thought about Paulina for a while, and then he thought about Valerie. But Sam didn´t like them and... wait how did he get back to Sam?

He got up, time to go home and get some sleep. He wasn´t getting anywhere with his thoughts anyway. He jumped into the air and hovered for a second, intending to take of at top speed, when his eyes caught something behind the sandpit, partly hidden by some bushes. It looked like feet.

Curious he moved closer, trying to discern what it was he saw. Then he gasped and fell to the ground with a thump, almost landing on the body. He yelped and scrambled backwards, away from that horror. Then he sat and stared. If he had been human his heart would have been pounding in his chest. As it were, he barely managed to keep himself in his ghost form, nearly fainting from the shock.

It was a girl. She was lying there, blood all over her clothes. And she was dead. He could tell because her _head was missing_! He shook his head and closed his eyes. This was not happening. He did not just find a _headless corpse_ in the park like he was in one of those bad movies he usually watched with his friends.

Slowly he opened his eyes. Still there. Hesitantly he got up and looked around, avoiding to look at the girl directly. He was shaking so he took a deep, shuddering breath to calm himself. Not that he needed to breathe but going through the motions helped.

Think, Danny, think. What to do now? Call the police, yes of course, that´s what he should do. He reached for his cell phone and found he hadn´t taken it with him. Besides, it would have been a bad idea, because they would be able to trace the call to Danny Fenton and he would not be able to explain his presence in the park at that time of night. Phone booth?

He jumped up, and rushed to the edge of the park where he new there was one. Crap, out of order. Now what. He looked around aimlessly and then his eyes fell on the distant outline of Caspar High School. Perfect, nobody would be around, there would be a working phone in the office and the call couldn´t be traced to him. Danny rushed to the school, flew straight into the office and picked up the phone.

Quickly he dialed 911 and yelled, "There is a dead body in the park at the playground," at the lady who answered.

"OK calm down boy, what´s your name," she said in a routine voice, her hand at the keyboard of her computer. The call was already being traced.

"I´d rather not say," Danny said nervously, "but it is really true, I saw her, she was dead, in the playground, just... dead". His voice cracked, he felt like crying.

"Are you with her now?" the lady asked, "Isn´t she just unconscious? Can you see if she is breathing?".

"SHE HAS NO HEAD LADY," Danny screamed and slammed the phone down.

He leaned on the desk, shaking his head. Then he stood up and drifted through the ceiling, all the way up to the roof and sat down there. He looked in the direction of the park, which was still quiet.

Had she believed him? He hadn´t been very coherent. What if she thought he was just some prankster, playing a joke. He should call again, explain better what it was he had seen, although he hated thinking about it. As he got up, he saw a police car approaching the park and stopping at the entrance near the playground. Two uniformed cops got out and started walking towards the playground.

Danny followed them, invisible. When they reached it, they started looking around shining their flashlights. Then one of them rounded the sandpit and called out to his partner. They had found her. Danny retreated. He had seen enough. He was going home and get some sleep and pretend he had never seen this. But he knew he would never get the image of the dead girl out of his mind.


	6. Out of mind

A/N: OK I managed to blackmail one review out of you. So I guess this is for Plushiemon :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom

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Out of mind

Sam entered her best friends bedroom, looking around. The place was a mess, clothes lying everywhere. Danny was still in his bed, snoring lightly. She looked at him disapprovingly. He was supposed to meet them at the mall at eleven. She and Tucker had waited for an hour and then had gone to the Nasty Burger by themselves, only to be chased away by a bored Dash and his friends. They had laughed at them and asked where her ´boyfriend´ was, because they needed something to punch.

"Ha," she had thought, "As if Danny couldn´t take you out anytime he wanted too, even without his ghost powers."

But she hadn´t said anything, for the same reason Danny let Dash push him around and stuff him into his locker all the time. If he retaliated, he would draw attention to himself. Now, nobody laid the connection between the clumsy Fenton and the cocky Phantom, dispite the similarities. That could change if Fenton started fighting the way Phantom did. That didn´t mean she had to like it though.

She looked at Danny. He really looked cute, the way he was laying on his stomach, his head buried in his pillow. His chest was bare, and she saw it slowly rising and falling from his breathing. She walked over to the bed and sat down on the edge of it. She extended her hand and ran her finger over one of the scars that decorated his back, tickling him. He shuddered and moved his shoulder blades to fend her off.

She put her mouth at his ear and said softly, "Boo".

Danny moved his head sidewards and blinked. He smiled at her and she scowled at him.

He looked somewhat taken aback at that and said "what?"

"You were supposed to meet us at the mall remember," Sam said, "the least you could´ve done is leave a message for us if you weren´t going to make it. We waited for an hour."

Danny popped up on one arm and looked at his alarm clock.

"Crap, I must have slept through it, I´m sorry Sam, I really am," he said.

Sam looked at him. He didn´t look too good. He had bags under his eyes and they were a bit red from the lack of sleep. She raised her eyebrows, already accepting his apology.

"Ghost fight last night?" she inquired.

Danny shook his head tiredly. To her dismay a haunted look appeared in his eyes.

"I´ll tell you later. Let me take a shower first and get dressed."

Sam went down to the living room again where Tucker sat, flipping channels on the TV. They watched some cartoons for a while and then switched to the Amity Park News. The news lady was just turning to the camera with a grave face.

"This is Tiffany Snow, with an update on this morning´s story about the murdered teenage girl at the playground in the park. It appears that the police have identified her, but they have not disclosed her name yet, as they are contacting her family just now. However, a witness reports having seen Danny Phantom at the scene of the crime."

She went on about it and Sam snorted, turning to Danny who had just entered.

"They are trying to blame you for everything these days, you´d think...," and then she stopped.

Danny had become deathly pale, as he stared at the TV. He extended his hand to the door frame, trying to steady himself. Then he turned and ran out the front door. Sam and Tucker exchanged looks and ran after him. They found him just outside, sitting on the sidewalk with his head in his hands.

"What was that all about." Tucker asked him, sitting down next to him. Sam placed herself on Danny´s other side.

"Alright, talk," she said firmly, "What happened last night, that kept you up so late you slept through your alarm clock?"

Danny slowly rose to his feet. "Lets walk," he said to his friends, "I need to keep moving."

They walked in silence for a while, purposely not heading for the park like they normally would.

"I couldn´t sleep last night," Danny started, "So I decided to fly around a bit, you know, see if there were any ghosts around."

"Were there?" Tucker asked.

The serious expression on his friend´s face was unusual. Danny shook his head, looking at the ground. He was silent for a while.

"Anyway," he continued, his voice cracking a bit.

Sam looked at him in alarm. Something was really, really wrong. Danny took a deep breath, steadying himself.

"Anyway, I ended up in the park, and I sat on a swing for a while and then when I was leaving I s-saw h-her."

He stopped, trying to pull himself together again. Tucker and Sam stared at him.

"_You_ found her," Tucker exclaimed, a bit too loud.

Sam punched him. They were walking aimlessly, but somehow found themselves automatically going in the direction of the mall.

"Let´s get something to eat," Tucker said, "I´m starving".

"Again?" Sam asked, eyebrows raised, "We ate an hour ago at the Nasty Burger."

"That was just a starter," Tucker declared.

Danny wasn´t listening. He didn´t care, he wasn´t hungry. He let his friends drag him to the hot dog vendor at the corner of the street.

"Here," Sam said to him, shoving a hot dog in his face, "You need to eat."

Danny stared at her incredulously. Sam was buying him a hot dog? Hesitantly he took it from her and took a bite. She scowled at him.

"Don´t take this as a precedent," she warned him, "Now eat. You´ll feel better."

So he ate and he did feel a little better. They sat down on a bench in the parking lot of the mall.

Sam looked at him. "So. What time were you there?"

Danny shrugged. "I don´t know. I think I left my house around three in the morning. I flew around for about a half hour or so and I sat on the swing for about the same amount of time."

Tucker blinked at him. "What were you doing?" he asked, "Anybody could see you there. No wonder they spotted you."

Danny shook his head and sighed. "I needed to think for a bit," he said, "I went home after I called the police and then it was already starting to get light, not like the sun was up you know, but it started getting lighter in the east."

Sam gasped. "You didn´t use your cell phone did you?" she said anxiously, grabbing his arm.

"I´m not that stupid. Besides I didn´t have it with me or I might have from the shock. I went to the school and used the phone in the office." He finished his hot dog and stared straight ahead, not really seeing anything.

"You know." Danny started suddenly, "You would have thought that after seeing so many ghosts this wouldn´t freak me out so much but it does. Ghosts are dead too but I´ve never actually _seen_ a dead body before. Ghosts are scary, but this..." He raised his hand in defeat.

"Was it anybody we know?" Tucker asked tentatively, but Danny shook his head, obviously very distressed.

He was about to say something when Tucker´s cell phone rang. He picked it up, said "Hi mom," listened and went very pale.

"OK, we´ll be there", he said hoarsely, hung up and stared at Danny. "I thought you didn´t know her", he said accusingly.

Sam and Danny were shocked to see tears brimming in his eyes.

"Who was it", Sam whispered.

"Ashley Summers, my neighbour. You talked to her last night." Danny took a step back, a horrified expression on his face.

"Well?" Tucker said, staring at him.

"She...she...she had no h-head"


	7. Copycat

Yay to my reviewers!

New rule: reviewers get a preview of the next chapter!

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom

* * *

Copycat

Mike Foley sat with Lydia Summers as she was crying. The two policemen, who had come to her door half an hour ago to tell her the sad news, were sitting opposite her on the couch, waiting for her to regain her composure.

Mike felt very uncomfortable. He really didn´t know Mrs Summers very well, he had only met her the evening before at the barbecue. But she had come to him that morning, worried, saying her daughter was missing. Since his cousin was out to work, his wife out shopping and Tucker somewhere with his friends, Mike had gone with her to take a look at the girls room.

The first thought that came to his mind as he entered the room was ´pink´. Everything was pink, from the walls, the carpeting to the desk and the covers of her bed. For a moment Sam Manson came to his mind. She would have despised this room. The bed was perfectly made, and several stuffed animals were sitting on it. He smiled at that, sixteen years old and still having stuffed animals on your bed.

He wondered if she slept with them as well, and if she didn´t, did she sleep with anyone else. Tentatively he asked Lydia Summers if the Ashley had a boy friend, but she just shook her head.

"Not that she knows of anyway," Mike thought darkly.

It appeared that Lydia had returned from the party early, because she had been tired, but had waited up until she had heard her daughter come home. What time that was? About eleven.

Mike looked around the room a little more closely and noticed the window was slightly ajar. Carefully he pushed it open a little wider and peered outside. There was a very convenient rain pipe right next to the window. Anyone who was agile enough and a little determined could come up. Or go down for that matter. He looked at the bed again. It clearly hadn´t been slept in, but upon closer inspection it looked like someone had been lying on top of it.

He looked at Lydia, who stood in the doorway, her hands wringing.

"Well," he said carefully, "What it looks like is she came home last night, laid on her bed for a while and then left through the window. Are you sure she doesn´t have a boyfriend?"

At that point Lydia got angry, first at him and then at someone whom she called ´that double-crossing no-good creep´. She left to to call him, only to return moments later, white faced, that the ´jerk´ hadn´t seen her, hadn´t spoken to her and had in fact been with his new girl friend. So they called the police.

And now they were sitting in in the living room and Lydia was crying. It had been a trying morning, first seeing the news report of the girl that was found in the park and Lydia fearing that was Ashley, only to have her fear come true as the two police cars had parked at her house. The police were currently searching Ashley´s room, after having heard Mike´s assessment of the situation. He had talked to them briefly, explaining who and what he was.

He saw Mary Foley´s car pull up at their house and excused himself for a moment. After quickly filling in the horrified woman, he returned and at the front door ran into the detective who was in charge of the investigation. He had been introduced to Mike earlier as Peter Zimmer.

"Could you give me some details?" he asked quietly. The policeman looked at him suspiciously but then sighed.

"Why not," he said, "Looks like you´re sort of involved anyway. We got a call last night that somebody had found a dead girl in the park and it proved to be true. It was pretty gruesome, I don´t think you´ll want to tell the details to Mrs Summers. Her clothes were just soaked in blood and the worst part is her head is missing. That´s why we had a little trouble identifying her."

Mike felt the color drain from is face.

"What," he choked, "She was what?"

The detective looked at him strangely. Mike took a deep breath.

"I´m sorry," he said, "I put a case just like that behind me only yesterday."

Now Zimmer looked very interested. "Care to tell me about it?" he asked.

Mike shrugged. "Not much to tell now. We had a serial killer in Chicago a couple of years back. Abducted young girls, cut their heads of. And then he left them at a playground somewhere. He managed to get nine girls that way before we caught him."

"Now that is almost too much a coincidence. He didn´t escape, did he?" Zimmer asked, but Mike shook his head.

"No. He was executed yesterday morning. I saw him die on the electric chair."

Zimmer sighed. "Maybe a copycat then," he mused, "Could you get me every bit of information about your guy? I´d like to compare it to what we´ve got so far."

Mike nodded. "I´ll get on it." He spotted Tucker and his friends coming home, looking pale and distraught. "Let´s go talk to them," he pointed.

Danny, Tucker and Sam headed into Tucker´s house and went into the kitchen, where Tuckers mother hugged him, crying.

"She was just here yesterday," she said, "She looked so happy. Didn´t she look happy? That poor, poor Lydia, first her husband leaving and now this."

"Yeah mom," Tucker said.

There really wasn´t much to say after that so they just sat there quietly, waiting for news. They didn´t have to wait for long, as Mike entered the house, followed by detective Zimmer.

"Hi guys, I guess you´ve heard," Mike said gravely, picking a chair and sitting down at the kitchen table. They nodded mutely. "I want to introduce you to detective Zimmer here, he is going to ask you a few questions, OK?"

Again they nodded, looking curiously at Zimmer. He cleared his throat and took a seat as well. Tucker´s mother hovered nearby at the kitchen counter.

"I heard you were all here at the party last night," he began, "Did any one of you talk to Ashley?"

Tucker and Sam looked at Danny, who answered. "I did. Well we all did but I was sitting next to her."

Zimmer looked at him questionably. Danny was figeting, looking very uncomfortable.

"I... well she was alright wasn´t she. I mean, I just talked to her for a bit."

"What did you talk about?"

Danny frowned. "I really don´t remember. About my dad, you know, ghosts and stuff."

"Did she mention her plans for the evening?"

Danny shook his head.

"Do you know her boyfriend? Any of you?"

At that both Danny and Sam shook their heads but Tucker frowned, trying to remember. "I think I saw her with a boy a couple of times, at her house. He goes to our school but I don´t really know him since they are older than I am."

"When was that?" Tucker shook his head. "I don´t know, I´m sorry. A while back, maybe two months. I haven´t seen him lately, but then I didn´t really pay attention to it."

Mike sat there, just watching. Nothing was really out of the ordinary with them, although Danny seemed very upset, more so than the others. Maybe he had really liked the girl. Then another thought hit him. He turned to Zimmer,

"There was a ghost here at the party last night."

That caught Zimmer´s attention immediately. "Which one, did you see?" he asked.

"Looked like some kid," Mike answered, "They said his name was Phantom."

"The ghost kid was here last night?" Zimmer said sharply, his attention now fully on Mike.

Mike raised his hands. "I really don´t know much about it, I only got here yesterday. But I saw him, he came around the house, into the back yard where we all were. I was looking straight at him. He seemed to be looking for something and then disappeared into the house through the wall. The Fentons went after him, but they couldn´t find him."

"Oh really," Zimmer said, looking pensive. "It´s funny the ghost should turn up here too. He was spotted at the crime scene you know." He got up. "Maybe we should pay the Fentons a visit," he said, "Wanna tag along?"


	8. Suspect

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom

* * *

Suspect

Danny watched them leave and slowly unclenched his fists. He had been hiding his hands under the table, so the two cops could not see his hands were shaking. He couldn´t let himself break down, not here, not now. Maybe later, when he was alone in his room, but definitely not now.

From the corners of his eyes he could see Sam and Tucker looking at him worriedly, but he kept staring ahead, lost in thought. Tuckers mother said something that didn´t register at first, then he realized she had offered them something to eat. He looked at her blankly for a moment, then shook his head.

He worked up a fake half-smile on his face and got up, saying "No thanks Mrs Foley, I should be getting home, my parents will wonder where I am."

That was a lie, his parents never wondered where he was. It suddenly struck him that his parents had a great deal of confidence in him, leaving him to roam free like that. Except for the occasional (well, frequent) grounding for missing his curfew that was. Sam and Tucker followed him outside and they stood on the sidewalk for a moment. There was nothing to say.

Danny looked at Sam worriedly. "Look, be careful OK," he said to her seriously, "There is a killer on the loose. I´d hate to... well... lose you."

Sam laughed a little. "All right, mister knight in shining armor," she joked, then added boldly, "Then walk me home."

Danny's mood improved visibly at that and on any other day Tucker would have been rolling on the ground with laughter. Now, only a sad smile was on his face as he waved them goodbye.

They walked in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. They had not spoken one word when they reached Sam's house. Danny turned to Sam.

"Um, see you tomorrow?" he asked.

Sam nodded, "And I'll talk to you tonight."

Danny took off after that, dove in a nearby alley and transformed into Phantom. He reached his house in no time at all and noticed an unfamiliar car in front of the house. He got curious immediately, so he flew into his room and transformed back.

Then he remembered there were probably two policemen in his house, that would find it very strange if he came down from his room without entering the house first, so he made himself invisible and walked downstairs quietly. He heard voices coming from the lab and paused. Maybe it would be a good idea to listen for a bit.

Very carefully Danny slid down the stairs to the basement, avoiding any sound. He would also have to be careful of his parent's ghost detection equipment, as it had a tendency to go off when he was near. The voices grew louder and he heard Mike speaking.

"So you're saying this Phantom fellow is a trouble maker that appeared about a year ago, causing mostly property damage."

"That's right," Jack said in his usual loud voice, "He should be caught so that we can rip him apart molecule by molecule. Even more so now that he appears to be a murderer too!"

Danny shuddered at that.

"I don't know," Danny heard his mother say pensively, "I mean yes, Phantom is destructive and evil, but to actually kill a girl... he is such a child. It just doesn't seem to fit."

Danny raised his eyebrows at that. His mother was defending him? Then he heard the voice of detective Zimmer.

"What about yesterday evening, when you chased him. What was he doing at the party?"

It was Maddie who answered, "We detected him on our ghost detectors. He is a very powerful ghost, so he is easily detected. Then he came around the house and I guess we scared him away. We chased him of course, but he disappeared right after he had gone into the house. Danny said he went through the front, but when we got there he was nowhere to be seen and our ghost detectors didn't pick him up either. We drove around for a bit but it was useless."

"What do you mean by 'Danny said he went out through the front'," Mike asked.

Danny winced. Why was this guy here anyway, making things more uncomfortable for him, always asking the right questions. He was supposed to be on vacation. But then, maybe once a cop, always a cop.

"He was right there, defending the house," his father boomed, "That's my boy."

"Don't be silly dear," Maddie said, "Danny won't have anything to do with ghosts. He just happened to be there."

Danny buried his face in his hands. His mother was digging his grave right in front of him.

"He and his friends seemed very knowledgeable. They were able to tell me a great deal about ghosts," Mike said.

"Of course he does, he's a Fenton," his father said proudly.

"You said he was seen at the park last night."

His mothers voice. Danny held his breath. This would be interesting.

"Yes," Zimmer answered, "Somebody who lives at the edge of the park saw him sitting on a swing. He left to call the police and when he came back Phantom was gone. Right after that we received an emergency call about a dead body in the park."

Danny sighed. Now he looked really suspicious.

"Can I hear the recording of those calls?", Mike asked.

"Sure," Zimmer replied, "Let's go to the station and then you can listen to the calls, see if you have anything to add, while I look at the material about your serial killer."

Danny blinked at that. Serial killer? But there hadn't been any other murders like this in Amity Park had there? He would have known, it would have been all over the news. Wait, _your _serial killer, Mike's serial killer. Mike was a cop in Chicago, he must have had a similar case there. So that's why he was involved.

Then he started as he realized they were coming his way. He quietly sprinted up the stairs and made it into the kitchen, to allow himself to go visible again. He was just opening the refrigerator when his parents and the two cops reached the top of the stairs.

"Hi mom, dad," he said casually, picking a soda and closing the door, "Hello Mike, Mr Zimmer."

He saw Mike giving him a hard look as they were saying their goodbyes. They left and his mother looked at him curiously.

"Hello sweetie, how come you're home?" she asked.

Danny shrugged and looked away. "We didn't really feel like hanging out anymore after we heard what happened to Ashley." He walked away. "I'll be in my room."

Once in his room Danny could finally ease the rigid hold he had on himself almost the entire day. All energy flooded out of him as he sat down heavily on his bed. His hands were shaking again and this time he did nothing to stop it. He looked at his computer. Maybe Sam or Tucker was online. He leaned back, feeling very tired. Maybe later.

He closed his eyes. He didn't notice it when Jazz looked in on him at dinner time. She went over to her brother, looked at his worn out face and silently covered him up.


	9. Echo's

A/N: Hi, just a quick comment on what Writer's-BlockDP asked me: I did not consciously copy the name 'Zimmer' from Master's Weapon by Secret Spy Guy but I did read it (you should too, awesome story). The name must have stuck. My character is _nothing_ like the one in that story though!

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

Echo´s

Mike took a bite out of his pizza and walked to the window of the office. The day was slowly turning into the night, the cloudless sky painted in a variety of pink and orange colors. He felt tired. Cases like this always wore him out. He looked at the desk Zimmer had lend him and walked back to it. Again he pressed the button of the cassette player and listened.

"_Amity Park Police Department, how may I help you?"_

"_Hello? Yes. This is Arthur Brennig speaking. I just saw that ghost Invisobill in the park. If you hurry you can catch him."_

"_Mr. Brennig, ghosts are not really our department. We are not equipped to catch ghosts. Is he causing any disturbance?"_

"_No, he is just sitting there, on a swing. It's despicable. Children will play there tomorrow. You should do something about all these ghosts that are invading our town. This thing turns up everywhere, he disturbed a party last night and..."_

"_We really don't have the manpower to go investigate every ghost sighting. If he is not causing any trouble just leave him."_

After that Mr. Brennig got into an argument with the police officer and hung up angrily. When questioned later he repeated the story, adding that 'Invisobill' had left when he had returned from the phone to look outside once more. The phone call had been recorded at 3:49. Mike continued to listen.

"_911, what is the emergency?"_

"_There is a dead body in the park at the playground!" _

"_OK calm down boy, what´s your name?"_

"_I´d rather not say, but it is really true, I saw her, she was dead, in the playground, just... dead."_

"_Are you with her now? Isn´t she just unconscious__? Can you see if she is breathing?"_

"_SHE HAS NO HEAD LADY!"_

At that the line went dead. Mike frowned, rewound the tape and played it again. The caller was obviously a boy, fairly young too. But the voice sounded strange. He wondered if it was the recording equipment that caused the distinct echo in his voice. He sounded very distressed, but then he would if he just found a headless corpse.

What was a boy his age doing in the park at that time anyway? This phone call had been recorded at 3:55, only minutes after the first one, and had been traced to Casper High School. Phantom had left during the Brennig call. Had he made the second call? Did ghosts make phone calls? Why at the school?

Mike looked at his now cold pizza and pushed it away to reveal the newspaper clippings of the infamous ghost boy again. He had read them all earlier, trying to put a picture of Phantom together. There were no clear pictures of him, only shots from a distance, very unclear and often out of focus. But then it must be next to impossible get him on a picture at all, the way he kept disappearing. The pictures that were there were mostly taken with camera phones.

He shifted the articles, looking at the head lines. Some seemed to incriminate him, naming him a thief and a vandal. Others proclaimed him a hero, a savior of the town. One headline caught his eye: 'Invisobill is Danny Phantom'.

The article went on about a ghost invasion and how the ghost boy had shouted his name when leaving to fight the ghost king. The article was vague about how the boy had pulled it off, but Amity Park had been saved and the ghost boy had disappeared for a while. Phantom's popularity had risen then. Zimmer entered the room and closed the door behind him.

"Getting anywhere?" he asked, taking a chair and sitting down heavily. He looked at the pizza. "Are you going to eat that?"

Mike shook his head and Zimmer picked a piece and took a bite.

"If I didn´t know any better," he continued, "I´d say your serial killer followed you here. The murders that happened in Chicago five years ago are completely identical to this one, right to the smallest detail, placing her hands like that, the way the head was cut of."

He threw the pictures on the desk and Mike looked at them. He had to agree. It was like looking at the pictures from back then.

"Find anything interesting in that?" Zimmer asked Mike, pointing at the newspaper clippings.

Mike shrugged. "Nothing definite," he said, "Listen to this."

He bend over and pressed the play button of the cassette player once again. The voice of the boy sounded through the room, reporting his gruesome find. Then he pressed the stop button.

"What´s with the echo," Mike said, "Is that something that was caused by the recording equipment?"

Zimmer blinked, then bend over to press the rewind button to listen to the message again.

"Now that you mention it," he said, "There _is_ an echo to his voice, isn´t there... At what time was this call?"

"Only six minutes after the Brennig call".

Zimmer thought about that. "I´ll look into it. You think it may be Phantom himself that made the call? That seems a bit out of character?"

"Does it?" Mike asked and pointed at the newspaper clippings on the desk, "Every time Phantom is spotted he is fighting another ghost, never humans. And while he causes a lot of damage, he seems to make sure nobody gets hurt."

He picked up an article and showed it to Zimmer who read it quickly.

"OK, so he saves this little boy here, but what about when he kidnapped the mayor, or the robberies?"

Mike raised his hands in the air. "I don´t know. There is a lot I don´t understand. Why call at the school for instance, there was a phone booth just outside the park."

"I can clear that up for you," Zimmer answered, "It was out of order. And speaking of the school, there was no sign of anyone breaking and entering the school, but we did find the phone he used. It was in the office, on the floor, like the caller hung up really forcefully. Which of course supports your theory that Phantom made the call, he could just go through the wall to get there."

"What I would really like to do," Mike wasn´t sure about this, "Is talk to this Phantom guy. Is there any way we can get into contact with him? The Fentons maybe?"

Zimmer snorted. "They chase him. He´s not likely to talk to them. No. But we could make it generally known that we would like to talk to him, maybe he will pick that up. There is no real danger for him to come to us, it´s not like we will be able to hold him."

He thought for a moment. "We could ask the Fentons to assist us though. If we do want to hold Phantom, I´m sure they have a way."

"You think he did it then?"

Zimmer shrugged. "I don´t know. But he was there and he is a ghost. As far as I´m concerned, all ghosts are evil until proven otherwise."

Mike got up. "I´m going home to get some sleep."

"Do you want me to drive you?"

Mike shook his head. "Nah, I´ll walk. I need some air."

With a wave of his hand he left.


	10. Questions and answers

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom

* * *

Questions and answers

When Danny woke up it was already past nine o´clock in the evening. To his surprise he had a blanked draped around him. He couldn´t believe he slept for hours, he must have been really tired, but he felt better now. In fact, he was not sleepy at all anymore. He wondered for a moment about his weird sleeping hours and then dismissed it. He took what he could get. His stomach grumbled and he remembered he only ate a hot dog. So he got up, raked his fingers through his hair to straighten it up a little and went to the kitchen to see if there was any dinner left.

"Hey sleepyhead," his sister smiled at him, "Hungry? We saved you some."

Danny muttered a thanks and put some of the leftover spaghetti and sauce in the microwave. He could hear the voices of his parents coming from the lab.

"So, do you want to talk about it?" Jazz asked, following him to the living room where he sat down and turned on the TV.

"Not particularly."

"OK. Well, you know where I am if you need me," Jazz said, looking at him intently.

He looked better now than he had before. She hated it when he kept things from her and he was keeping something from her right now, she was sure of it. She could read him like a book.

Danny caught Jazz staring at him and frowned at her. She shrugged and left to go upstairs to her room. He turned his attention to the TV again and watched a lame comedy show while eating. Then he cleaned up and went back to his room. He turned on his computer and chatted with Tucker for a while. They had just agreed to meet at his house the next day (so Tucker could wake him up if he overslept again), when his ghost sense went of.

"Sorry Tuck, gotta go," he said quickly.

"Hey, do you need backup," Tucker yelled, already grabbing one of his thermoses.

"Let me see what it is first. Maybe it´s just the Box Ghost. I´ll call you otherwise."

Danny made sure this time he had his cell phone, clenched his fists and transformed into Danny Phantom. Tucker grinned at him from the computer screen.

"Go get 'm Danny."

Hovering above his house, he looked around. The ghost was near, he could feel it, so he turned a full circle, scanning the area. Then he got blasted in the back and he was hurled against his neighbour's house.

"Got you now, whelp," he heard the ghost say.

Danny gritted his teeth. "Skulker. Don´t you have anything better to do? Because I sure do."

He was answered with another ecto blast which he avoided, and then returned the favor with one of his own. At that point the battle got a little out of hand as they moved over Amity Park trying to do some serious damage to each other.

"We´re causing too much damage," Danny thought and sped away from the ghostly hunter to find a less populated area.

Of course they ended up in the park. Danny managed to pull out his cell phone and called Tucker, which he had on speed dial.

"Get your ass over here," he yelled at the phone, just before it was blasted from his hand.

"Way ahead of you," he heard from the ground and he saw Tucker and Sam rushing towards him.

"Now we´re getting somewhere," Danny grinned as he turned around and flew at Skulker full speed.

The hunter was taken by surprise at that and Danny managed to knock him to the ground, right in front of Sam´s feet, who pointed her thermos at him and sucked him in. Danny landed a couple of feet away, panting. He looked at his right hand, where green ectoplasm was leaking.

"Great. Now I have to get a new cell phone. _Again_."

"It´s only a phone," Sam said, inspecting his hand, "I think you´ll be OK if you..."

"_Phantom_!"

The three jumped and whirled around to see who was calling. Danny groaned when he saw it was Mike Foley. He looked at his friends.

"Catch you later," he whispered, going invisible and moving away.

Tucker and Sam looked angrily in his direction and then turned to face Mike.

"Shy fellow huh," Mike said to them, looking around. "Well, Phantom, if you´re still around, listen up. We want to talk to you. We think you found the body of that girl, but we don´t think you did it. We are not after you. We just want to talk."

It wasn´t a complete lie, he really didn´t think the ghost boy did it. They were all silent for a moment, Sam and Tucker shifting uneasily, moving their ghost hunting equipment behind them in an attempt to hide it. Then suddenly the air around them chilled noticeably and Danny became visible, hovering about six feet away from them.

"Who´s we," he demanded.

"Well, I am Mike Foley. I am sort of assisting the police here with the investigation of the murder," Mike said carefully, studying the ghost in front of him.

It really was just a boy, he thought. But a powerful one, he had watched him fight that other ghost in the metal suit.

"Would you just... come to the ground, this is really freaking me out."

"Oh, sorry." Phantom floated down and placed his feet firmly on the ground. "Better?"

Mike nodded.

"Why are you assisting the police here in Amity Park?" Danny asked, "I thought you were..."

He stopped quickly. He wasn´t supposed to know anything about him. Mike looked at him oddly but decided to let it rest for the moment.

"Look, would you come with me and talk to detective Zimmer with me, tell us what you saw?"

But Danny shook his head. "I´m not walking into a police station with you. In fact I´m not going anywhere. Let him come here. I´ll talk."

Mike got out his cell phone and called Zimmer, while looking at the three teenagers, two of them alive, one dead. He wondered how they knew each other, and why Tucker and Sam were helping him. He had seen Sam capture the ghost in some sort of device that had shot a blue ray towards the ghost, and then the ghost had been pulled in. Right now she was talking franticly to Phantom, waving her hands, occasionally glancing in his direction. Phantom had crossed his arms over his chest and looked annoyed. Mike shuddered. He looked so... alive. Maybe they knew him before he died. That would explain why they had been so secretive back at the party. They didn´t want anyone to know this. The he wondered where their other friend was.

After waiting for fifteen minutes, Zimmer jogged into the park. He spotted them instantly and walked over, looking warily at Phantom. Phantom returned the look and Mike chuckled. Then they both glared at him. Zimmer pointed at a picnick table nearby.

"Let´s sit over there."

They sat down, Mike and Zimmer at one side of the table and Phantom on the other side, facing them. Zimmer pulled out a recording device and placed it on the table for Phantom to see. Phantom looked at it suspiciously but said nothing. Zimmer pressed the recording button and then looked the ghost straight into his glowing green eyes.

"Can you say your name please."

"Phantom".

"Danny Phantom?"

"Yes." Danny shifted uncomfortably.

"Can you tell us what you were doing at the party at the house of the Foley´s the day before yesterday?"

"I was chasing a ghost."

"Another ghost?"

"Yes"

"Could you be a little more specific?" Zimmer was getting a little annoyed trying to drag information out of the boy, ghost or not.

Danny sighed. "Look, I sensed there was a ghost there, so I went to investigate and he was at the trashcans, but he took off and I couldn´t find him anymore and then my..the Fentons started chasing me, so I left in a hurry."

"OK. And can you now tell me what happened in the park last night. What were you doing there?"

"I was sitting on a swing. I wasn´t doing anything." Danny got agitated.

Mike interrupted. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why were you sitting there in the middle of the night?"

"Well I can hardly go there during the day now can I."

"Would you just answer the question!"

Danny´s shoulders slumped somewhat. He looked away for a bit. "I just needed to think."

"About what?"

"Being dead. Look, I sat there for about half an hour, totally alone, and then I wanted to fly away and I saw feet sticking out from behind the sand pit and I went to go look and bingo a _headless corpse_."

He was waving his hands and some of the ectoplasm that was leaking out of his right hand splattered on the table. Mike looked at it.

"You´re hurt."

"No kidding. Could we hurry this up, I need to see to this."

He waved his injured hand once more. Mike winced.

"Doesn´t that hurt?"

"_Yes it hurts_. Are you done yet?"

Mike looked at Zimmer, who asked, "And was it you who called from the school?"

"Yes"

"Why the school?"

"It was nearby. The phone at the park entrance was out of order."

"Did you call right away? I mean, how much time between when you found her and the call?"

"I´m not wearing a watch. I don´t know. Couple of minutes."

"You got there pretty fast then. The person who saw you in the park saw you sitting on the swing called at 3:49. Your call was only six minutes later."

"I can fly over a hundred miles an hour. I can get anywhere pretty quick. Look. I´ve told you all I know. Are you done with the questions?"

"For now. Can we contact you somehow if we need to?"

Danny looked at Tucker and then back to Zimmer.

"Tell Tucker. He can get a message to me," he said and vanished.

Zimmer sighed and pressed the stop button on the recording device. He looked at his watch and then at the two teenagers who were still standing nearby.

"It´s almost midnight. I´ll drive you home."


	11. Red eyes

A/N: This chapter comes with a ribbon around it... Happy birthday magpie8spook!

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom

* * *

Red eyes

The weather deteriorated in the next couple of days and Danny spent them mostly sitting at his computer, chatting with his friends and playing games. Sam and Tucker were pretty pissed at him for a while, because he had left them standing there in the park. They both had been grounded for being out so late. After Danny had apologized over and over again, they had grudgingly forgiven him.

"At least Mike didn´t tell your parents you were ghost hunting," Danny said to Tucker.

"I´m just waiting until he does," Tucker said gloomily, "You know, he´s got a hold on me now. If he tells my parents I´ll be grounded untill I´m eighteen. By the way he wants to talk to you again."

So Danny had gone to talk to him in his ghost form. He had met Mike in the park at night, alone this time, at the same picknick table they had been before. Mike had questioned him, not about the murder case but about the unfortunate events that had made him ´Public Enemy no. 1'. Danny had tried to explain what had really happened, but he didn´t know if Mike had believed him.

Mike made him feel very uncomfortable. He seemed to be intrigued by Danny Phantom. He wanted to know what drove him, who he had been, why he was what he was. He would ask a question about one subject and then switch topic to something completely different, his dark brown eyes shining brightly. Danny had left feeling he had revealed too much.

Danny had also stepped up on his patrols during the night. He circled Amity Park, not only looking for ghosts but anything else suspicious. There were very little people out late at night, the ones that were there were generally just drunks and bums, or people with night jobs. Of course these late night patrols made him sleep untill well in the afternoon, which didn´t bother him too much, since it was raining all day anyway.

And so one day flowed over into the next and nothing interesting happened, other than the occasional ghost attack (mostly the Box Ghost, beware!). Danny was flying over Amity Park, not paying much attention this time. Maybe the killer had moved on, he thought, left Amity Park to kill someone somewhere else. He shuddered at that. Then he looked down. He was over the park again, nearing the playground. He closed his eyes. He seemed to be seeing Ashley´s body again, lying behind the sand pit. Then he looked again.

"No," he whispered.

He started to shake as he drifted closer.

"No. No. NO!"

He screamed and fell to the ground. Slowly he got up and walked around the sand pit. It was just a hallucination. She wasn´t really there. But she was. The same way as before. A girl, lying on the ground, her hands crossed over her body. Danny moved closer, unable to stop himself from staring at the place her head should have been. His knees went week and he sat down with a thump. And then he just sat there. He felt numb. How could he have missed this? He had been trying so hard to prevent it, flying around, trying to keep everybody safe. But then he had been alone, and Amity Park was a big place to cover all by himself. Whatever he did, it would never be enough.

He studied the girl. She seemed young, but without the head he couldn´t really tell. Then he noticed something else. There was a lot of blood on her body, but very little on the ground.

"She wasn´t killed here," he muttered to himself.

He looked around. How did she get here? Someone must have carried her from the entrance of the park. He got up and started floating. He should call the police again but first he was going to scan the area, just in case the killer was still around. A cold determination flooded through him. This had to stop.

The park was very quiet, as was the street next to the park. Nobody in sight. Then he remembered that the police would probably want to know what time he found her, so he looked at the clock and saw that it was five minutes past three. He didn´t know how long he had been sitting there with her though.

The houses across the street were all dark. Nobody to spy on him this time. The police had probably questioned everybody that lived there. Then he looked at the warehouses at the end of the block. They looked empty too but it couldn´t hurt to take a look, so he flew over, went intangible and floated inside. It was very dark inside, so he let his hand form a small glowing ecto ball. Nothing out of the ordinary, just lots and lots of boxes. He looked around warily, expecting the Box Ghost, but all remained quiet. He made a quick tour through the warehouse and then moved to the next. This one was abandoned. It was empty, some windows were broken and it was full of rubble from a caved in wall.

Danny shivered, even in his ghost form he could feel the chill of this place. Suddenly he felt an overpowering urge to leave. He turned around but caught himself just before phasing through the wall. There was something wrong with this place, and wrongness was just the sort of thing he was looking for. He steeled himself and lit up another ecto ball, illuminating the space he was in with an eerie green light. But there seemed nothing wrong with the place, other than the feeling of dread he was experiencing.

One thing he had learned over the past year was to trust his instincts. What he lacked in intellectual abilities, he made up with his sense for trouble. He always seemed to be able to find trouble, even though mostly it was him getting detention. Or maybe trouble found him. It had been that way even before he had been zapped by his parent´s ghost portal, which was probably the reason he got zapped in the first place.

Danny let the ecto bal go out and floated upwards through the ceiling. The feeling lessened somewhat, and he realized with a start that it had in fact been coming from the floor below. Was there a cellar in this building? He went downstairs again and studied the floor and the walls. Nothing. No stairs or door. Only the rubble from the caved in wall in the corner. But still, there was this feeling...

Going intangible, he let himself sink through the floor. Sure enough, there was a cellar here, but it was pitch dark. He was just about to light another ecto ball when he heard movement coming from behind. He whirled, just in time to see two angry red glowing eyes. Then the darkness became complete.

* * *

_Sorry about the cliff hanger... OK I´m not sorry. At all. On the bright side, I´ll update on Sunday._


	12. Trust

A/N: edited 4/22/2007

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

Trust

Danny was staring at a small beam of light that came pouring though a crack in the ceiling. Funny how bright it seemed in the the otherwise very dark cellar. He could see well enough by it. He moved his arms, bringing one hand to his head. Then he rolled to one side and pushed himself up.

He felt dizzy and wondered if he had a concussion. He sat for a moment, letting the nausea pass. Then he concentrated, lighting a small ecto ball in his hands. It took an unusual amount of effort to do that and he blamed it on the splitting headache he had. The green light reflected on the walls and the floor, revealing... nothing. He was alone. There were some stairs in the corner though, so he got up and walked over, only to discover that they were blocked by large chunks of stone, wood and rubble.

"OK," he muttered, "I´ll just go ghost and fly out of here."

He remembered the events from last night. What time was it? Habitually he looked at his left wrist but his watch wasn´t there. But something else was, his arms seemed to be covered in some black, sticky substance. Then he looked down at his t-shirt and saw that it was the same. The ground was covered with it as well, and he had been lying right in the middle of it. Green light. Red turned black in green light. It was blood. But that couldn´t possibly be all his blood, he´d be dead...

He sat down on the floor with a thud. Of course this wasn´t his blood. It was that girls. He was covered in _her_ blood. A sob raised in his throat but he surpressed it. He had to get out of there and tell Mike and detective Zimmer this. And then he would go home and hide for the rest of the summer until they had solved these murders.

Danny concentrated and with some difficulty managed to transform into his ghost form. He went intangible and invisible and floated out of the abandoned warehouse. The street was filled with police cars and in the distance he could see the playground swarming with policemen. They had found her.

He hesitated, debating himself if he should approach them now and get it over with, but he really didn´t want to get too close to all those policemen. Then he thought of something else. This was no ordinary killer. Well duh, it was a serial killer, but he remembered the red eyes. _Glowing_ red eyes. And the only way to get into the cellar had been phasing through the floor. It was a ghost who had been doing the killing and with that it became his responsibility.

It was fifteen minutes past ten, according to the clock on the tower nearby. Carefully, invisibly, Danny drifted closer to the playground, watching the policemen, searching for a familiar face. Then he saw Mike, standing to the side, talking to another man. Danny moved a bit closer, waiting for them to finish. Suddenly Mike looked up and started looking around. He must have felt the temperature dropping. He excused himself and walked away from the others a bit.

"I know you´re there," he said softly, scanning the area.

"We need to talk," Danny said just as softly, remaining invisible.

He was amazed at how steady his voice sounded.

"OK talk."

"Not here, not now. I need to... rest for a bit," Danny said.

His invisibility flickered for a moment, revealing his tormented face to Mike. Suddenly he was afraid he would inadvertently transform into his human form right in front of him. He strained himself, willing himself invisible once more.

"Meet me later at the warehouse on the corner over there, I need to show you something. Bring Zimmer. Bring anyone you like but no ghost hunters. Four o´clock. Oh, and bring a flashlight."

With that, Danny took off as fast as he could. He made it to his house and phased though the roof and the ceiling of his room, straight onto his bed, transforming as he fell on it. He heard shouts and gasps and he moaned in frustration as he opened his eyes, dreading to see his parents. Luckily it was only his friends and Jazz, who were now staring at him incredulously.

"Danny!" Jazz exclaimed, "What...what happened to you? Are you hurt?"

Danny closed his eyes and then realized that must freak them out, so he opened them again and pushed himself up on one arm. He shook his head.

"No I´m not hurt. That isn´t my blood."

"Where have you been man," Tucker said, "We´ve been calling you the whole morning!"

Danny pulled his phone from his pocket and sure enough, there were seven missed calls, one from Tucker, one from Sam and five from Jazz.

"Sorry," he said, "I was out cold. Didn´t hear them."

"Do you know why we called you?" Sam asked.

"I can guess. I was at the park not five minutes ago."

They looked at him, expecting him to continue. He got up and looked down at himself, at the blood soaked t-shirt, jeans and hands.

"I need to take a shower and change," he said unemotionally, "Then we´ll talk and then I´m going to get some sleep because I have a headache."

Danny showered and changed his clothes. Then he rinsed the blood from his old clothes as well as he could and threw them in the washing machine. He had felt a lump on the side of his head when washing his hair, but his headache subsided a little from the shower. He returned to his room, his hair still damp, to find the three of them sitting on the floor and his desk chair, waiting impatiently.

"Took you time, did you," Sam said sarcastically.

Danny flopped on his bed and closed his eyes for a moment. Before they could say anything more he quickly relayed the occurrences of the night before to them, leaving nothing out. They sat in a stunned silence.

"That´s... quite a coincidence," Tucker said hesitantly, giving Danny an odd look. Danny stared at him. "I mean, you stumbling over the location that they were killed like that, while the police couldn´t find anything and all."

"What are you suggesting?" Danny growled.

He couldn´t believe what he was hearing. Jazz sighed.

"You´ve been under a lot of pressure Danny," she said, "I think it is best if you just rest for now..."

Danny jumped to his feet, glaring at his sister and his friends.

"You think I did it, don´t you," he yelled. Tucker looked taken aback.

"Look," he said defensively, "You come here covered in blood from the place where a murdered girl was found. What are we supposed to think?"

"You're supposed to believe me!" Danny yelled, "You're supposed to be my friend!"

Tucker quickly stepped back as Danny advanced on him, his eyes flashing green. Then he stopped and seemed to deflate at the sight of his friend backing away from him. He sat down on his bed again, put his head in his hands and stared at the floor. When he looked up again he saw they were all smiling at him and he realized they had been testing him.

"I resent that," he said morosely.

"Come on, we believe you," Sam said, "It´s... I don´t know. It just doesn´t seem right. Didn´t you sense him when you were in the warehouse?"

Danny shook his head and winced at the movement.

"I just knew something horrible was in the cellar," he said sullenly. He thought about it for a moment. "I was never aware of him before he hit me on the head. But he had glowing red eyes. He was a ghost alright." He glared at Tucker. "_Another_ ghost."

Tucker winced. He hadn't liked playing the devil' advocate.

"So, what are you going to tell them this afternoon," Jazz asked.

"Show them the cellar I guess. Tell them they are looking for a ghost. If they believe me. Even you guys have a hard time believing me..."

"We believe you, _always_, you know that," Jazz said, leaning over to him and grabbing his hands, "We just had to make sure you were still you."

Danny felt very tired now. Sam got up.

"OK," she said, taking charge. "You are getting some sleep. We will wake you at three thirty and then we´ll go there together."

"You´re not going in there," Danny said flatly.

"I have absolutely no desire whatsoever to go in there with you," Sam told him, "You wear the Fenton Phones. We´ll be nearby. Now go to sleep."


	13. The cellar

A/N: Remember, reviews make my day... Shameless plug: I started another story! Go read!

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom

* * *

The cellar

Mike walked into the abandoned warehouse at exactly four o´clock, in a bad mood. He had just gotten off the phone with his wife's lawyer and it had left a bad taste in his mouth. He felt stretched, his wife pulling at him from one end and this serial killer from the other. No wonder he was so tired all the time. And then there was the mystery of Phantom.

He was followed by Zimmer who was complaining that this was a waste of time, they'd already searched this place. He looked around. The place was empty and looked about to collapse. The stairs on the other side had holes in it and in the corner some wall had collapsed into a pile of rubble. The place was radiating a sense of doom that almost made him want to leave again. He shivered and turned around to Zimmer.

"Creepy place," he commented, "What did the owner say?"

Zimmer shrugged, took out his notebook and started flipping pages.

"Brennig. Lives down the block. Said this place has been empty for five years. He was complaining about regulations, apparently he wants to build apartments in this place. If you ask me he should just tear it down. What did Phantom want?"

"I wanted to show you something," a voice came out of nothing, "Are you alone?"

Zimmer looked around. "Yes we are alone," he said, "please show yourself, I can´t talk to a void."

Right in front of him Phantom shimmered into existence. Mike studied him. He looked better now compared to that morning, less worn out.

"So, did you sleep?" he asked him conversationally.

"Yeah," Phantom said, looking at him uncertainly. "You feel it too, don´t you," he said to Mike, "that there is something really wrong with this place."

Mike hesitated and then nodded. Zimmer raised his eyebrows.

"Just seems like your regular run down building to me," he said, "Look, what did you want to show us. I´ve got more things to do, like catching what now appears to be a serial killer."

Phantom smiled lightly, but Mike noticed the smile didn´t reach his eyes. Then he reluctantly looked down at the floor.

"Do you know who she is is already?" he asked, stalling.

Mike answered him, "Tanya Lancaster. She was twenty years old. Some kids found her this morning around eight."

Phantom looked stricken at that. "I´m sorry," he whispered, "They shouldn´t have... I should have...I could have spared them that."

"What!" Zimmer shouted at him angrily, "You mean you found her earlier and didn´t call us! Or did _you_ kill her!"

Phantom backed away. "I´m sorry," he cried, "NO I didn´t kill her! Look, all I wanted to do is look around for a bit to see if the killer was still around and then call you guys but..."

"BUT WHAT!"

Phantom set himself on the ground and looked at them defiantly. It struck Mike that he was very hard trying to keep himself from falling apart on them. Of course it was hard for a kid, finding a dead body for the second time. But he was a ghost. You would say he would have seen death before. He noticed he found it harder and harder to think of him as a ghost instead of a regular teenager.

"Look," he said patiently, "why don´t you start at the beginning. What were you doing in the park again."

"Alright. I was... patrolling the area. I thought I could keep a lookout for your killer as well as ghosts. And then I flew over the playground and I thought I saw Ashley laying there again, you know, but when I went to look I saw it was somebody else. And then I noticed there was a lot of blood on her clothes, but nothing on the ground, so she wasn´t killed there but the killer would have to carry her there from the park entrance and that´s when I decided to have a look around to see if he was still there."

Mike stared at him. "You were trying to look for a serial killer? By yourself? Are you nuts!"

Phantom shrugged. "It´s not like he can kill me," he said gloomily.

Zimmer cut in. "What happened that you couldn´t call us?" he asked, "Why are we here? We already searched this place."

Phantom smirked. "Not good enough. There is a cellar underneath." He faltered. "I went in there last night because... well I had a feeling there was something down there. And then I was hit on the head and was unconscious the whole time until this morning."

Mike remembered Phantom had looked sick and had trouble retaining his invisibility that morning. He didn´t know you could knock out a ghost and voiced this as a question.

"He hit me pretty hard," Phantom said, rubbing his head, "I could still feel it when I was... never mind."

Mike started walking across the room, looking around. "How do we get down there?" he asked, when he didn´t see any stairs.

"Yeah, well that´s the funny part," Phantom said, "You can´t. See that rubble in the corner? That´s where the stairs are. But I can take you there if you´re willing to hold on to me."

Mike looked at Zimmer for a moment and took out his flash light. Zimmer did the same. As they approached Phantom they noticed that the boy radiated cold from his body. Hesitantly, Phantom put his hands on their arms.

"Sorry about the cold. This will feel a bit weird," he said and turned them intangible.

Mike felt himself sinking through the floor and landing in the cellar, where Phantom quickly let go of them. It was very dark there, save for a tiny bundle of light shining through a crack in ceiling. He turned on his flashlight the same time Zimmer turned on his.

"Oh my God," he whispered.

He shone the light around the cellar. He heard Zimmer gasp beside him. The walls and the floor were covered in blood. He took a step forward. Phantom had purposely put them down at the edge of the cellar, near the caved in stairs, where there wasn´t so much blood. Mike studied the ground meticulously, and then he pointed.

"Somebody was laying there," he said, shining his flashlight on the spot, "and then he got up and walked over here."

"That was me," Phantom said quietly.

He looked very distressed. Mike turned around to Zimmer.

"We should get forensics in here," he said.

"How?" Zimmer asked him, "there is no entrance. We have to get some construction workers in here to clear the rubble from the stairs and strengthen the building. Which means..."

They turned to Phantom, who had backed away from the blood as far as possible and now sat on the stair case.

"I saw the guy who attacked me," he said, not looking at them, "I mean, I saw a black shadow coming at me. He had glowing red eyes. It was a ghost."

Suddenly Mike notice the temperature dropping even further. He looked at Phantom but he just stared past him, at the blood, a horrified expression on his face. Zimmer seemed to notice the cold too because he started rubbing his arms and looking around him uncomfortably.

He was about to ask Phantom what it could be when the ghost started screaming.

"NOOOO! STOP IT! STOP IT!"

He fell down on his knees, clutching his stomach.

"Please! I don´t want to see."

He started crying, bending over until his head touched the ground. To Mike´s surprise, two white rings formed around his body, starting to split.

Sam, Tucker and Jazz were listening intently at the conversation through the Fenton Phones, Jazz having one and Tucker and Sam sharing the other. Danny had put his in his pocket, as not to alert the two cops they were being overheard. The reception was surprisingly good. And then Danny started screaming.

Sam jumped up, turning to Tucker and Jazz, who had been sitting next to her on a bench, across the street from the warehouse.

"Danny is in trouble," she shouted, "come on."

They ran across the street and into the building, coming to a halt in the spacious room.

"Now what," Tucker said, "They are down there and we can´t get to them."


	14. Visions

A/N: I've been thinking, magpie8spook and Soului pointed out that Danny's friends and family would never suspect him, but is that true? Didn't they have to deal with an evil Danny at least twice? Couldn't they have doubts, at least until they saw his eyes were _green_? Still, I think I'll rewrite that part at some point.

I tried separating the dialogue from the narration. Is this easier to read now?

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

Visions

Danny was sitting on the stair case, trying to get away from the blood. How could there be so much blood? He was staring ahead, past the two cops who were talking together when suddenly he saw movement on the other side of the room. The temperature dropped dramatically and he tried to see what it was, because the cops obviously couldn´t see it. They walked right through... her. It was Ashley. She was sitting on the ground, hands tied behind her back, tears streaming from her eyes.

"Please," she whispered, "please. I just want to go home. Please mister." And then a dark figure appeared behind her.

"Play with me Ashley," he whispered, "Why won´t you play with ME!"

Then he lashed out with the knife he had held hidden in his left hand. Danny closed his eyes and started screaming, screaming. But when he opened them again he saw another girl sitting in the exact same spot and the scene repeated itself. Danny fell to his knees.

"I don´t want to see," he thought, closing his eyes tightly.

He could still hear it though, their pleading voices, the ghost's whispering he wanted to play, the sickening sound of the knife cutting their throat in one movement. His already overburdened nerves couldn't take it and he felt himself slipping away into unconsciousness.

"_Danny_!"

Sam´s voice. Danny gasped, holding on to that voice. To his horror he felt the two white rings separating from his middle and he clenched his fists, concentrating. The rings disappeared, leaving him in his ghost form. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder, shaking him.

"Phantom! What´s wrong!" Mike yelled at him, but Danny couldn´t answer.

He was quiet now, staring at the images of the girls, their murder being repeated in front of him over and over again. Mike stepped in front of him, bend over and looked into his eyes.

"Phantom," he yelled, "whatever you´re seeing, look away _now_. Let´s get out of here. Pull yourself together, we can´t get out if you don´t help us. You won´t have to come in here again."

Danny blinked at him and closed his eyes, blocking everything out.

"Get over here," he said hoarsely.

Both Mike and Zimmer grabbed his arm, and without warning Danny lifted them into the air, going intangible just before he reached the ceiling.

Sam heard Mike yelling at Danny and quickly turned to Tucker and Jazz.

"You get out of here," she said hurriedly, "they are coming up."

"Why are you staying," Tucker asked her, already obeying her by walking to the door.

"Danny needs me. But if those policemen see us with Phantom together too much without Danny they might get suspicious. So you get out, go home. I´ll say Danny is with you guys," Sam replied quickly.

Jazz shook her head. "Danny needs me too!"

"NO! He needs you at home! Now go!"

Seeing the wisdom of this Tucker and Jazz left. Just when they were going through the door, Danny appeared in front of Sam, holding the two cops. They all became solid when Danny let go and sank to the floor. Sam stepped closer and grabbed his hands.

"Phantom," she said sternly, ignoring the two cops, "Go home. Talk to... you know who. I´ll see you later."

Danny looked up at her with vacant eyes, but he seemed to understand because he disappeared right in front of her. Sam stepped back and scowled at the cops in front of her. Zimmer was already on the phone, ordering more manpower to tear the place apart. Mike just looked at her.

"What happened," Sam said accusingly.

Mike raised his hands. "I´m not sure," he said, "Phantom freaked out. He was seeing something we couldn´t and it terrified him. Then the rings appeared around him and started moving."

Sam brought her hand to her mouth and paled visibly. He didn´t, she though feverishly.

Mike continued. "But they disappeared again when you called him. Why did you call him?"

"Eh... oh we were in the neighbourhood and we knew he had an appointment with you and eh.. I decided to drop by, yeah," Sam stuttered, relieved that Danny had managed to stop the transformation in time.

She had the feeling Mike didn´t believe a word she said. He bend over to her, looking into her eyes. "You were listening," he said and tapped on the Fenton Phones that were still in her ears.

"Well..yeah. But only to protect him," Sam said, annoyed.

Mike wasn´t done yet. "You are all protecting Phantom. Why. And why did you call him _Danny_."

"That´s his name, right. Danny Phantom."

"I know that. And what´s with the 'go home' part. Do ghosts have homes?"

"Of course they do. Haven´t you heard of haunted houses before? Look. Phantom is our friend. Of course we protect him."

Mike sighed exasperated. "OK, you go home too. We´ll be fairly busy here for the time being. But I want to talk to all of you and I want to talk to Phantom. I need to know what it was he saw."

The implication of a ghost being responsible for the murders hit him, and he remembered the ghost at the barbecue. But then again he had only Phantoms word that there was one. An idea popped up. If he could just get Phantom to cooperate, he might be able to prove something...

Danny sat on his bed, his arms around his knees, staring at a space poster on the wall. He had wanted to be an astronaut but in the last year that dream had been shattered. Like everything else around him. His life had been falling apart and he hadn´t even noticed it. All he did was eat (too little), sleep (haunted by nightmares) and fight ghosts. And now he was going after a murderer. Who was also a ghost, so he had to.

A knock on the door and Jazz entered. She looked at his hopeless face, sat down on the bed next to him and wrapped her arms around him.

"Little bro, what have you gotten yourself into," she said softly.

"I don´t know Jazz," he said, pulling her arms from him and falling backwards on his bed.

Jazz smiled. She would have been even more worried if he hadn´t done that.

"I keep seeing it. Even now that I´m out of there I keep seeing it," he said, looking at her.

"Do you want to tell me what you saw?"

Danny was silent for a while. "I saw them get murdered," he mumbled, "but only I could see it."

Jazz nodded pensively. "You know what, you rest a little. We´ll order pizza once Sam gets here and we´ll watch some stupid comedy on TV, how does that sound?" Danny nodded and Jazz left his room, but left the door open for Tucker.

"You OK?" he asked, not looking at Danny.

"Super," Danny grumbled.

"Look, I'm sorry, alright," Tucker said, taking a seat, "I um, was a little out of it this morning, you know, with Ashley dying like that and you showing up like that..."

Danny shook his head. "Forget about it," he said.

Tucker's face lit up a bit. "Thanks. Hey, let's ditch Sam tonight and play Doomed, to take our mind of things!"

Danny grinned. "Fine by me, but why ditch Sam?"

"She's a girl! She doesn't play fair."

"I heard that!" Sam stuck her head around the door.

Tucker winced. "Oh man..."


	15. Icy fingers

A/N: Nothing to say... enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

Icy fingers

It was late again, and the police station was mostly dark. On the top floor a window stood half open to let in some air, and light spilled out. Inside there were three people, two alive and one dead.

Lisa Morgan was very uncomfortable. She had been talked into this by Mike Foley, but with the Phantom so close she was beginning to have second thoughts. He radiated cold and his intense green eyes were creepy. Lisa was very much afraid of ghosts.

Danny on his part was none too happy either. He kept glancing at the door and was ready to take off at any moment. Talk about walking into the lions den, he thought, but what they had to do needed to be done here. Lisa sat at the computer and tried to create a picture of the ghost Danny had seen at the barbecue, while Danny described him.

It was really hard. He hadn´t seen him all that well and he had been very transparent. To his surprise he remembered more and more of him as they went along, creating a face that bore some likeness to the ghost.

Mike watched them. It had taken some doing to get Phantom up here. First he had flatly refused by mouth of Tucker, who was relaying their messages. Then Tucker had gotten tired of being their messenger boy and had stormed up to Mike when he got home, pressing his cell phone in Mike´s hands.

"Here, you talk to him directly, this is driving me nuts."

Mike had managed to convince the ghost to come over that night and then called Lisa to be there too. Then, out of habit, he checked the caller ID on Tucker´s phone to see who he had called but it just said ´Danny´. A ghost with a phone? Or maybe he was using Danny Fenton´s phone.

Mike had gone to the police station again and Phantom had arrived within minutes, simply phasing through the wall on the top floor where Lisa´s desk was. It was a large room with about twenty desks in it. Her´s was in the corner near the window.

While waiting for Lisa to arrive, Mike had tried to question Phantom about the day before, but found the ghost in a very quiet mood. Still, he had managed to get a somewhat coherent story from him.

"_I saw first Ashley and then that other girl, what was her name. Then he came up to her and.. you know."_

"_Tell me."_

"_He killed them. Cut their throat." Phantom´s voice cracked for a moment but he regained control immediately. "Then it started again, over and over untill I couldn´t stand it anymore."_

"_What happened? What´s with those white rings?"_

"_That what´s happens when I start to pass out." _It wasn´t a lie.

"_Did you get a good look at him? Can you describe him?" _

_Phantom shook his head. "All I saw was his form somehow. And his eyes. They were red, glowing like mine."_

"_How come only you could see it?" _

"_Tucker looked it up. Amazing what you can find on the internet. Apparently sometimes when a person dies violently, it can leave an imprint on the place they were in. So they weren´t ghosts, they were more like... a recording. They´ll be there forever, until the building is torn down and even then... Obviously ghosts can see them. Some humans can as well."_

And now Mike was sitting there, watching a picture come to life. As they were busy, he let his thoughts wander again, having nothing else to do. Who was Phantom? He had shown up less than a year ago but Mike had not been able to find any death of a teenager in Amity Park around that time that fit the description. It was possible that he had come from some other place, but something Phantom had said made him doubt that.

"_I take it you have never seen something like that before."_

"_This is a quiet town. Luckily not many people get murdered here, or I might have seen something like this before."_

"_So you´re from Amity Park then, you didn´t come here from somewhere else I mean." _

Phantom didn´t say anything at that point but Mike had seen a flicker of worry crossing his face. He was on to something, Mike knew. Phantom didn´t want Mike to find out where he originated from because that could lead to who he was... or had been.

"How is it going," Mike asked Lisa.

She looked up. "About halfway done." She glanced at Phantom, who was sitting firmly on a chair next to her. "At least he stopped hovering."

Phantom blushed at that and started rubbing the back of his neck. Mike stared at him, his thoughts racing. When was the last time he had seen that nervous gesture before? He had always prided himself noticing those things, storing them for later use. But it eluded him now. He rubbed his eyes. This case was messing with his head.

Phantom´s voice shook him out of his thoughts. "You know, I´ve been thinking. I didn´t sense the ghost in that cellar and I should have. And the only time that happens is when a ghost is overshadowing someone."

Mike looked up at that, straight into the glowing green eyes of the ghost. They lacked the mischievous spark that had been there before. Phantom was deathly serious.

"What do you mean by that?" Mike asked.

Phantom shifted in his chair and looked at the ceiling. He didn´t like to talk about it. "It´s like... well I told you about the mayor. A ghost can eh.. sort of take over someone´s body. Pretend they´re them. I wouldn´t know it. You can see it in their eyes though."

Lisa backed away from the ghost sitting next to her. Mike frowned.

"So it could be anybody then."

Phantom shrugged.

"Have you ever done that?" Lisa asked, "Overshadowing I mean. Would I know if you did?"

The ghost boy was silent for a while. "Can´t we just get on with this?" he said, gesturing to the computer.

Mike shook his head. "No, I think this is very important. Is a person aware of it when he is overshadowed by a ghost?"

Phantom sighed. "No. It depends. Most of the times the person doesn´t know what happened, like back then with the mayor. You can fight it though, if you are aware of it. Throw it out."

"Have. You. Ever. Done. That," Lisa said angrily.

Phantom didn´t look her in the eyes. "Um, yeah. But I don´t like it."

Lisa started shaking her head and moved even further away from him. "And I´m sitting here with you...you... _freak_!"

The idea that a ghost could take over her body revolted her. Phantom looked pained. Mike intervened.

"Come on Lisa, you are almost done. Let´s just finish this up. I´m sure you have worked with people you didn´t like before."

"People, yes," Lisa spat, but she reluctantly went back to her computer and sat down, suppressing a shiver.

Mike leaned over their shoulders as they worked on the picture of the unknown ghost again. Slowly a familiar face began to emerge. He was certain now. A cold feeling went through his body when Phantom turned to him.

"This is as good as I can make it," he said, "Hey are you alright?"

Mike looked as if he had seen a ghost as he opened the file he had taken with him and took out a photo. It was a mug shot, and it was the same guy.

"I witnessed his execution on the electric chair last Friday morning. His name was Earl Turner. He was laughing the whole time."

Mike didn´t know ghosts could pale but Phantom did so right in front of him.

"The killer was at Tucker´s house... that means...," he whispered, "It must have overshadowed someone near Tucker´s house. I saw the ghost go around the corner, and then he disappeared. If he overshadowed somebody it would explain why I couldn´t sense him all of a sudden." He took a deep breath. "And that means we know him."

Mike stared out of the window while Phantom continued talking. Who had been close to the ghost when he came around the corner? He remembered standing there, with his cousin. It couldn't be Maurice, could it? Then there were Mr and Mrs Fenton, but surely they would notice if they were overshadowed?

Who else had been close? There was that pompous guy who had been complaining about taxes and Danny Fenton had just come out of the house... the nervous boy who had told him about the ghosts, _rubbing the back of his neck_. Mike turned and stared at Phantom, who had fallen silent, looking at him with those green eyes.

"Um, can I?" Phantom asked.

Replace the green with blue, turn the white hair black, who do you get?

"Mike?"

Mike stared at him with wide eyes. Danny Fenton had been acting strangely when he was questioned. _But how could that be_?

"Mike?"

Phantom leaned closer to Mike and extended his hand. Mike blinked and then nodded, guessing Phantom wanted to check if he was overshadowed. Lisa paled.

"What are you doing, ghost," she yelled, backing away.

Phantom was distracted for a moment. Mike felt a coldness sweeping over him and then something touched his brain with icy fingers. His mind shattered.

* * *

_A/N: The 'imprint' idea actually comes from Cordria, it's in her profile. So the credit for that idea goes to her.  
_


	16. Surprises

A/N: edited 04/19/2007

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom

* * *

Surprises

"We need to check everybody who was at the party," Danny said, "Um, it's probably best if I start with you? It will feel a bit weird but at least we'll know for sure... Mike?"

Mike was staring out of the window, seemingly not hearing him. Then he turned around and stared at Danny, wide eyed. Danny started feeling nervous. He knew that look, Mike was on to something.

"Um, can I?" he said.

A mixture of emotions came from Mike. Surprise flashed over his face and then understanding.

"Mike?" Danny asked again.

He didn't know what the cop was thinking, but he was sure he needed to distract the man from his train of thoughts.

"Mike!" he said, more forcefully.

He decided to just go ahead, so he extended his hand, intending to make a quick sweep through Mike's body when Lisa spoke up.

"What are you doing, ghost," she yelled.

Danny turned to Lisa to try to assure her he meant no harm when he saw her eyes go wide. She wasn´t looking at him, she was looking at Mike. He felt her fear suddenly increase and started to turn back, instinctively jumping out of the way when he felt a piercing pain. He stared in disbelief at the knife sticking into his shoulder and staggered backwards until he hit the wall. His hands clutched the knife and pulled it out as he slid to the floor, letting green ectoplasm poor out.

Lisa gulped. Mike´s eyes had suddenly glowed red as he reached for a knife that he had hidden in his jacket. He had stabbed Phantom and the ghost boy was now sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. She wasn´t prepared for this. She wasn´t even a police woman yet. She had just been doing Mike a favor, aiding him in putting together a composition drawing.

Mike advanced on her, with those angry red eyes and a dripping knife in his hand. She opened her mouth to scream but he punched her in her stomach and she doubled over, gasping for air and fell to her knees.

"Now Lisa," Mike said, but it wasn´t Mike´s voice. He smiled viciously. "Why don´t we play together?"

He grabbed her hair and yanked her head backwards.

"Please," she sobbed, "Please don´t."

Danny watched in horror as Mike, no Earl, lifted the knife.

"Mike!" he said hoarsely, "Mike! Remember! You can fight him!"

The man that wasn´t Mike hesitated for a moment. Danny struggled to keep his ghost form and lifted his hand, firing an ecto blast at the overshadowed man. He hit him in the arm and Earl dropped the knife. Danny hit him again, using more power this time as he felt his body failing him. Two voices howled in pain simultaneously and then Mike was free and the ghost of Earl Turner was slammed into the wall. Mike fell to his knees.

Earl extracted himself from the wall and glared at the ghost boy. Then he started to laugh maniacally.

"You can´t stop me! You are weak! And I get stronger every time I kill!"

At that he swooped down, grabbed Lisa and flew through the roof.

Mike stared at his hands. His hands, it had been his hands that had killed those girls, slicing their throats, cutting of their heads... He didn´t want to think about it.

"You can fight it," Phantom had said, but he hadn´t. Didn´t that make him just as guilty? He heard a groan and looked up at the ghost boy sitting against the wall, the front of his black jump suit covered in green ectoplasm. He did that too. Then, to his surprise, two white rings appeared around the boy´s waist, one traveling upwards over his head and the other down. A black haired, blue eyed teenager appeared wearing a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt that was quickly turning red.

"Crap," Danny Fenton said.

The pain had lessened somewhat in the transformation. The wound was less serious now, being mostly on his ghost form. Still, it hurt and he was bleeding all over the place. Danny climbed to his feet and approached Mike, who was staring at him in disbelief.

"Well, now I guess you know," Danny said lightly.

Mike shook his head. "So that's how you do it. I knew there was something strange about you. I just... Fenton, Phantom. How´d I miss that all this time?"

"Most people do. Do you think there is a first aid kit around here somewhere?"

Mike winced as he looked at the blood soaked t-shirt and nodded. When he came back a minute later carrying the first aid kit, he found Danny sitting on a table, holding his cell phone.

"Jazz? ... No I'm fine...Really...Mom and dad still out? Grab as many weapons as you can find and meet us at the police station, wait pick up Sam and Tucker too. Oh yes, could you bring me a clean shirt?"

He hung up and turned to Mike, who was stunned at the commanding tone the teenager took with his sister. Danny lifted his t-shirt over his head, groaning as he did so.

"Patch me up," he said to Mike, "I can´t do this if I´m bleeding all over the place."

Mike said nothing as he started to bandage the teen´s left shoulder. The boy had been lucky to turn away when he did, or he would have been dead already.

"This happen to you a lot?" he asked, pointing at the numerous scars.

Danny tried to shrug but was painfully reminded of his most recent damage.

"Note to self," he muttered, "No shrugging this week."

"How did you get to be this way?"

"It was an accident. I was in my parent's ghost portal and I accidentally turned it on. I thought I was going to die, but instead I turned out like this. I had the hardest time controlling it in the beginning."

"What about your parents?" Mike asked, "How do you keep this from then?"

"They don't think it's possible. Every ghost gadget they invent goes off around me, they just think there's something wrong with it. It gets awkward sometimes though."

They heard a car pull up downstairs. Danny glanced out of the window and spotted Jazz, Tucker and Sam outside, beside Jazz´ car. They looked up and he waved at them.

"Let´s go," he said to Mike and Mike followed him downstairs, too overwhelmed to ask any more questions.

Sam rushed up to Danny as soon as he stepped outside, but stopped when she saw Mike following him.

"What the...?"

Danny saw his friends stare apprehensively at Mike. Jazz made a strangled noise and Tucker almost dropped his PDA.

"Oh. Yes. Um, Mike saw me transform," Danny said.

Mike smiled half-heartedly.

"Actually I figured it out before," he said.

"What? How?"

Mike shrugged. "The way you move. The way you act. The fact that you were never around when Phantom was."

Danny swore under his breath.

"Who else knows?" he asked.

"Just me. I only realized it half an hour ago, just before... you know."

"You can't tell anyone."

Mike didn't say anything to that. Danny sighed. He would have to convince him later to keep this to himself. He shuddered when he thought of the concequences if Mike decided to turn him in, maybe even turn him over to the GIW.

"Got my shirt?" he asked Jazz.

Wordlessly she took out a clean white t-shirt and handed it to him.

"Thanks," he said and pulled it over his head, wincing when he had to move his arm.

"I´ll tell you guys what happened later, right now we have a ghost to catch. He kidnapped Lisa. She is the lady that was helping me put a composition drawing together. The killer was overshadowing Mike here and I blasted him out, but he took her with him. We have to find him quickly."

"He is not close," Tucker said, looking at Danny´s breath that was completely normal. "Where do you think he will take here?"

Mike took a deep breath. It was time he stepped in, took control. "I´ll alert the police here. They can send out patrols to look for him."

Sam shook her head. "They will never find him. He´s a ghost. Our best shot is Danny. He can sense him even if he is invisible."

"What´s your range," Mike asked him.

Danny sighed. "Depends on how powerful the ghost is," he said, "I had trouble finding him last Friday, he was very weak then. But he is stronger now so..." He turned to Jazz. "Did you bring the Fenton Finder?"

Jazz shook her head. "They've taken it apart. Dad said it wasn't working properly."

"It worked properly alright," Danny mumbled. He hesitated. "Maybe we should call V... the red huntress," he said. They all looked at him, stunned.

"Are you crazy!" Sam said, "She'll fry you!"

"Yes, but she has a reliable ghost tracker."

Tucker shook his head. "I'm with her on this. It will take forever to convince her to help us and not blast you. We don't have that time... Besides, I haven't seen her around lately. She is probably on vacation or something."

"We have to approach this logically," Jazz interrupted Tucker, "Where would he go? Where has he gone before? How does he... work?"

Mike nodded at her. "He takes his victims to some abandoned place, always near a playground. After he kills them he leaves them at the playground. We´ve... never found the heads."

"So we check the playgrounds," Jazz said as she climbed in her car.

The others squeezed into the back seat and the passenger seat with her. Sam took out a map from the glove department and studied it.

"OK, we´re close to this one right over here, then that one, and we´ll tour the town. I hope all of the playgrounds are on this thing." She looked at Danny who sat slumped in the passenger seat. "I suppose going ghost right now would be out of the question?"

Danny grunted something unintelligible.

They drove to the first playground but Danny´s ghost sense didn´t go off so they proceeded to the next. They checked three playgrounds like that and Danny was getting very agitated. Time was running out, and with each passing minute the chance of finding Lisa alive was lessening. He wondered what would happen if he went ghost anyway. How much ectoplasm loss could he stand? His shoulder was throbbing painfully.

Sam was muttering to herself as she studied the map, tracing their route with her index finger.

"Turn left," she said to Jazz after they had checked the fourth playground.

Jazz obeyed and they had driven only a minute when Danny´s ghost sense went off. Danny sat up quickly, scanned the area, hoping it wasn´t the Box Ghost. The surroundings were hauntingly familiar. On their way to the next playground they passed the park. They were right next to the warehouse the earlier murders had taken place. Mike saw it too.

"He didn´t...," he whispered.

* * *

_I'm having a little trouble with the next chapter, so I'm not sure I'll have it by Wednesday, sorry about that. Working on it though..._


	17. Fear

A/N: Sasia93 is totally right, it is very unlikely Danny's friends wouldn't say something about Mike knowing his secret, so I'll do something about that...later. For now I'm just glad I got this finished! I've been over this chapter so many times I can probably recite it from memory now... Anyway, the whole story has been leading up to this so... enjoy? (and I'll hide...)

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

Fear

The silence in the building was overwhelming. Danny could hear the blood rushing through his veins, his heart pounding in his chest, his breath shuddering. There seemed to be something wrong with his eyes because the room shifted in front of him, as if looking through overheated air. But it was cold here, very cold. His ghost sense was doing overtime, producing a constant icy blue mist from his mouth. He felt movement beside him and turned his head, to see Sam rubbing her arms while holding an ecto blaster. Tucker was beside her, shivering.

Mike was to his left, looking equally uneasy. He had strongly objected to Sam and Tucker being there, but had been quickly silenced by them when they pointed out that, unlike him, they were experienced ghost hunters. Jazz was outside, waiting for the reinforcements that Zimmer had promised Mike on the phone earlier.

Like the last time, Danny felt an almost overpowering sense of evil emanating from the floor. But now there was something else too. Fear. It seemed to crawl up to him, heightening his senses, making him somehow even more aware of his surroundings. The air seemed to thicken. Then someone whimpered.

Sam gripped the ecto blaster tightly. It was all she could do to stop her from shaking. Despite her outward confidence she felt very insecure, which was an unusual feeling for her. This was no ordinary ghost they were up against. She could almost feel the evil spirit that was in the building, according to Danny´s ghost sense. She looked at him. He had a strange look on his face.

Tucker was standing next to her, a grin frozen on his face to hide his discomfort and fear. The building, which in daytime had looked just like any other run down place, seemed ominous and dark now. He was holding his favorite weapon, the Fenton Lipstick.

Mike was holding the Fenton Bazooka with some difficulty. The weapon had clearly been made by Jack Fenton, who could wield it without so much as blinking an eye. It was very heavy. He glanced sideways at the three teenagers beside him. Sam was holding the ecto baster confidently in her right hand. She had the strange soup thermos that he had seen her use in the park, strapped on her back. Tucker held what looked suspiciously like a lipstick. He looked more excited than frightened. Danny seemed disturbed somehow. Well, Mike was too. The strange feeling of doom that he had felt that afternoon was back, tenfold.

Danny clenched his fists and closed his eyes.

"Going ghost," he thought and two white rings appeared around his waist, one traveling upwards, the other down.

The white t-shirt and jeans changed into the black and white hazemat suit, his hair turned white, his eyes a glowing green. He deliberately took it slow, checking himself over as he changed, feeling the throbbing pain in his left shoulder increase.

He checked himself again and decided that he was fine. The rip in his suit was gone, as always miraculously repairing itself in a transformation, but he could feel the ectoplasm trickling out of his shoulder underneath it. Then the fear hit him and he shuddered. He could feel the emotion much clearer now that he was in his ghost form. It was somehow... intoxicating. He had to almost physically shake himself to focus on the task at hand. He felt a hand on his arm and smiled reassuringly at Sam´s worried face.

Silently they moved to the corner of the room, where the rubble on the staircase had been cleared away. The floor was cracking. Surely whoever was down there would have heard them by now. They peered down into the cellar and saw a soft glow coming from it. Danny steeled himself, knowing what he would see and floated down the stairs. He was followed by Mike, Sam and Tucker in a more conventional way. He had dreaded this moment, vividly remembering the last time he was here.

Lisa was sitting in the middle of the cellar, at the exact same spot as Ashley and Tanya had been. He knew because they were there also and were, like Lisa, knelt on the ground, hands tied behind their backs. She seemed to be sitting _in_ their translucent, white forms, making it seem as if her movements had a white trail behind them and giving her an angel like glow. She was afraid. He could almost taste it.

Behind her stood Earl Turner. He was no longer transparent but had a very solid form. He grinned at them as they descended, looking directly at Danny.

"Ghost boy," he hissed, "How´s the shoulder? I thought I got you better than this." He pointed at Lisa. "Nice huh. Almost an angel."

He stroked her hair and Danny felt a new wave of fear and panic coming from her. Earls eyes burned even brighter from it and Danny felt a strange elation rising in him. Earl moved a little closer to them, studying Danny.

"You like it, don´t you," he said, "The fear. It´s... like a drug. Do you want some more?"

He pressed his knife against Lisa´s throat. A small red line appeared.

Danny was frozen. This was wrong, it felt wrong and yet... he wanted more. He couldn´t take his eyes of Lisa´s face, her fearful eyes, her slightly trembling lips. He wanted to look away, not wanting this feeling of... _longing_. He felt something move inside of him, like a door had opened, letting in feelings he never had before. A mixture of hatred, pain, lust and rage entered him and made him shudder. He tried to push it back, revolted by himself. This wasn´t him, he didn´t feel this way, he couldn´t...

Earl studied the ghost boy. He was trying to fight it off, trying to move away even. His companions obviously couldn´t. He was happy to see Mike Foley standing next to the ghost boy, holding some very big gun. It was pointed to the floor as he stood there, frozen on the spot. Earl was going to take special pleasure in killing him.

The girl with the purple eyes was something too. The fear made it impossible for her to even raise her gun. She was very beautiful. She would be next, he decided. He pressed the knife a little deeper into Lisa´s throat, and closed his eyes for a moment to savour the feeling.

Sam watched as her best friend moved towards Lisa. She couldn´t move. There was an overwhelming power emanating from the ghost that was holding the woman, knife still at her throat.

"It´s Lisa´s fear," she thought desperately, "He is feeding of her fear, getting stronger. What is Danny doing!"

In horror she watched her friend approach Lisa and stopping in front of her. As he reached out his hand to touch her face, Sam saw his eyes. They were blood red.

Mike desperately wanted to move, jam that ridiculously big gun into the evil ghost´s face and pull the trigger. He didn´t know what it would do to the ghost but it would probably not be pleasant. But the ghost seemed to draw power from the cowering girl he was holding, pressing the knife into her throat deeper and deeper. Lisa closed her eyes and whimpered softly.

Danny suddenly moved towards them.

"Good," Mike thought, "If he can break the spell..."

And then he saw his eyes. The bright green glow had changed to an evil red, shining brighter as he came closer to Earl Turner. Mike´s mouth went dry. If Earl had Danny under his control there was no stopping them.

As Danny touched Lisa´s face, Mike felt a rage building inside of him. Earl Turner would kill again. He had made him kill, used his hands to cut of their heads, tainted him. He would have to live with the fact that, altough it had been Earl´s mind, it had been his body that did it. He felt dizzy. For a moment he could see himself standing there, holding the knife, his hands turning crimson...And he could have fought it off. Danny had said so. He wanted to scream.

Mike saw the boy cup Lisa´s face in his gloved hand and squat in front of her. He moved his head closer to her face and seemed to hesitate. Beside him, Sam made a strangled noise as if trying to break free from the hold Earl had on her. Earl was grinning madly and looked down on the ghost boy. Danny moved closer to Lisa as if intending to kiss her and Sam screamed.

Mike was moving. All feeling, all sound had stopped and he saw everything in an unsurpassed clarity. The trickle of blood dripping from Lisa´s throat into the collar of her blouse. The gleaming of the knife that Earl was heaving up into the air in slow motion. The green streak of an ecto blast, heading for the ghost.

He hit Earl Turner the same time Sam´s ecto blast did, knocking him across the cellar. The ghost screamed in rage and lashed out with the knife, plunging it into Mike´s right thigh. Pain shot through him as he landed on the floor. He rolled until he reached the wall. Sound came back to him and he heard Tucker yell at Danny. He turned and saw the ghost boy standing up, dragging Lisa up with him. She went limp.

Danny gasped when he was suddenly cut of from Lisa´s fear as she fainted. He cried out in frustration and anger and tried to fight off the suddenly empty feeling. He needed more, he never wanted to let go. Then he saw Earl advancing on Sam, and she was firing her ecto blaster at him. It hardly slowed him down. Tucker jumped to her side and tried to blast the ghost with his lipstick but Earl brushed him aside, slamming him into the stairs. He fell to the ground, groaning.

"Danny!" Sam yelled.

He could feel her fear, although she tried to hide it. He felt a growing anticipation as the ghost grabbed the gun from her hands and threw it away.

"Get away from me!" she screamed at Earl and kicked him.

Tucker scrambled to his feet and launched himself at the evil ghost, knocking him aside. Sam reached behind her and grabbed the Fenton thermos that was strapped on her back, but before she could open it Earl grabbed Tucker by his throat and heaved him up into the air.

A wave of fear came from the boy and Danny closed his eyes for a moment, a soft smile on his face. Earl threw Tucker at Sam and the thermos went flying across the cellar, landing near the far wall.

Tucker landed on top of Sam, coughing and gasping for air, trying to breathe. Her head hit the ground hard and for a moment she was dazed. She turned her head sideways and searched for Danny. He was standing in the middle of the cellar, still holding on to Lisa Morgan.

She looked at him pleadingly and he stared back into her eyes. Something snapped in him.

"What am I doing?" he thought, confused.

He heard somebody move behind him and looked back, to see Mike on the floor on the other side of the cellar, covered in blood. He let Lisa slide onto the floor.

Earl grabbed Sam and dragged her up, pushing the coughing Tucker aside. She started punching him. Danny was moving now, as in a haze. He dove at Earl and threw him away from Sam, who staggered backwards against the stairs and tripped over Tucker who was just starting to get up. Enraged, Danny blasted Earl again and he was blown against one of the newly put up support beams, cracking it. Nobody touched his Sam.

Mike moved and touched something. To his surprise, he still had the Fenton Bazooka. He sat up and moved to grab it, but felt a wave of nausea pass over him. He was losing blood fast, he realized, as he glanced down to his leg, the knife still sticking into it. Earl must have hit an artery.

Again he reached for the big gun, pulled it close and heaved it up. He almost didn´t have the strength to do that anymore. Earl was getting up as well, only to be blasted against the wall by Danny. Mike pointed the bazooka at him and pulled the trigger.

A deafening thunder sounded in the cellar, cracking the walls and the rest of the support beams that had been placed there by the construction workers. A swirling green vortex appeared next to the ghost of Earl Turner and sucked him in.

For a moment, all was silent. Mike´s vision blurred and he laid back down, leaning on one arm, feeling cold and sweaty. Then the building started to shake. His head shot up and he looked at the others. They were on the other side of the cellar, Tucker slumped on the stairs, Sam leaning against the wall nearby, Lisa on the floor, unconscious. Danny looked at him. There was no time. He gave Mike a pleading look and grabbed hold of Sam, Tucker and Lisa, turning them all intangible. The last thing Mike saw as the building came crashing down on him were two glowing green eyes.


	18. Sleep

A/N: Alright, you all liked the last chapter (well, the ones that reviewed did)! That's great, but it makes me a little nervous about this one. I hope your expectations didn't go way up... the last chapter was definitely the best I can do.

I updated chapter 16 and included a more realistic reaction of Danny's friends to Mike's finding out his secret. I also updated chapter 12 and changed the conversation they had after Danny got home.

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Well, I own a copy of that but I suppose that doesn't count.

* * *

Sleep

_He was squatting in front of her, tasting her fear. She was beautiful. He took in her gleaming eyes and quivering lips. He wanted... he leaned forward, but stopped for a moment when he heard Sam moan. _

_"You´re next," he thought and kissed the woman, the ecstatic feeling rising in him as waves of terror washed over him. _

_Then he was suddenly standing behind her. He heaved his knife into the air and lashed out with it. He watched in fascination as her blood flowed over his hands, turning them crimson._

"NO!"

Danny sat up, wide eyed and panting. The early sun shone through his window, lighting his room. He wiped the sweat of his brow, got up and walked to the window in his boxers and t-shirt. It was six in the morning. The sun was shining brightly in the empty street. It was very quiet outside, peaceful even.

He used to go flying when he was stressed but he really didn´t like transforming into his ghostly self anymore. He could feel people´s emotions much sharper now. He realized that he had been able to do that before but he hadn´t been so _aware_ of it until now. Especially the fear. And a lot of people were afraid of him.

"With reason," he thought, remembering Lisa´s initial fear of him at the police station.

He winced as he thought of what he had done to her. She was in the psychology department of the hospital. She wasn't doing very well. He had gone to see her, against Jazz' advice, to try to explain to her what had happened.

* * *

_He could see her from the window on the third floor of the hospital. It wasn't late but it was already turning dark outside. She was lying on her bed, face to the wall, her short blond hair messy. After hesitating for a moment he floated through the window. He really needed to talk to her, explain to her what had happened._

"_Lisa," he said softly. If she was asleep, he would go, he decided. She turned and her eyes went wide._

_Somehow he hadn't expected it. She shot up from her bed and backed away from him, her mouth moving, but not making a sound. Her fear hit him like a shock wave and he gasped, feeling he was losing control quickly. The feeling was there again, he felt his strength increase. _

"_I'm...I'm sorry," he choked, turning to leave. But he hesitated. _

_"A little more...," he thought and he almost turned again to see if he could scare her a little more. What was the harm in that? She was already afraid anyway...  
_

_He shot through the wall and sped away as fast as he could, going way up in the sky. When he was so high up he knew he wouldn't do any damage he let out his ghostly wail. He kept it going until he got dizzy and reverted back to his human form._

_That was a bad mistake. He started gasping for air as he was falling with increasing speed back to earth. The lack of oxygen made him giddy and he watched in fascination as the ground rushed up to him. _

_"Maybe it will be friends with me," he giggled, remembering that passage from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. _

_Thinking about his friends brought him back to his senses and he transformed back into his ghost form and made a soft landing near his house.  
_

* * *

Abruptly he turned from the window and headed downstairs, to the kitchen. It was Saturday, no one was up yet. He grabbed a bowl, poured himself some cereal and milk and sat down at the table. Listlessly he started to eat. 

They had barely escaped the collapsing building. Danny had flown Sam, Tucker and Lisa out, putting all his remaining energy in turning them intangible. When he finally managed to get clear of the building they had run straight into the four police cars that were parked right in front of the building.

Two of the police cars and Jazz' car were damaged by falling debris, people were running around and coughing from the dust, two of the police men appeared to be injured and were sitting in the two undamaged police cars. One of them was pressing a cloth against his head, red blood seeping through. In the confusion, Sam and Tucker had managed to get away while Danny had approached detective Zimmer with the still unconscious Lisa.

What had followed was a shouting match between Zimmer and him, the cop accusing him of the murders, collapsing the building and hurting Lisa. Jazz had tried to intervene, but Danny had simply thrust Lisa into Zimmers arms and had left, leaving Jazz on her own to try and explain her presence. Which she had done admirably, after all she had had lots of practice covering up for him. They couldn't really hold it against her that she had accidentally parked her car in front of a building that collapsed on it.

Then there were questions, lots and lots of questions. It had been days before they had been able to get a coherent story from Lisa. In the end she had confirmed his story about the composition photo. But she also remembered the cellar.

They were worried about him, he knew. The last eight days since it had happened, Jazz had been nagging him to talk to her. Even his parents noticed something was wrong, that he wasn´t sleeping and hardly eating. He stared down at his half-eaten cereal. Well, he was eating now.

He didn´t want to talk. He never wanted to talk, or even think about what he did ever again. What he almost did. If it wasn´t for Mike... A feeling of sadness rose up in him. He hadn´t been able to save him. He had to choose, his friends or Mike and he had made his choice. He hoped Mike would understand, wherever he was. Tucker had left for the funeral in Chicago two days ago and was supposed to come back that morning.

"At least my secret is safe," Danny had commented bitterly to his friends.

Tucker hadn't answered to that but Danny knew he had hurt him. He had reasoned with himself endlessly, trying to convince himself that he really couldn't have saved Mike. That the only reason he had saved Sam, Tucker and Lisa and not Mike was because they were closer. But he should at least have tried. What if he, in that split second, had decided that it was convenient that Mike should take his secret to the grave?

He didn't understand his friends. They seemed normal around him, acting like they always did, even when he was rude or bitter to them. Which wasn't right. They had _seen_ what he had done, they should be... revolted, like he was. They should hate him, he wanted them to hate him, hell, he hated himself.

And yet they came by every day. They kept dragging him out of the house, forcing him to go do stuff with them, like go to the beach, the mall, the water park. Sam didn´t even like the water park. He went along with them, if only to get away from Jazz who was trying to psyco-analyze him.

He heard someone come down the stairs and a moment later Jazz walked into the kitchen, fully dressed. She stopped in surprise when she saw him.

"You´re up early," she commented as she too grabbed a bowl of cereal.

Danny grunted and Jazz sat down at the table next to him.

"Look," she said, "You don´t wanna talk to me, fine. But this is eating you up. Do you realize school starts on Monday?"

Danny stood up and placed his half eaten cereal in the sink.

"Stop nagging," he said rudely.

Jazz grabbed his arm and he tensed. She quickly let go of him, shocked at his instinctive reaction.

"Talk to Sam," she said, "Tell _her_ how you feel."

Danny got angry. "What do _you_ know! Why can´t you guys just LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE!"

He turned and bumped into his mother. He brushed past her and ran upstairs.

"What´s _with_ him these days?" he heard her say as he slammed the door to his room.

He decided he needed to get out of the house so he took a shower, dressed quickly and ran out the front door before anybody else could talk to him. Without thinking he walked to Sam´s house and only when got there he realized he was an hour early. He sat down on the steps and started brooding.

Earl Turner was somewhere in the ghost zone now. He might be able to get out, which had caused Danny's fear of sleeping, afraid he'd miss him if he did. He had been searching for him in the ghost zone twice but hadn't been able to find him. The ghost zone was a big place and he had almost no friends there, in fact he had narrowly escaped Walker both times. But he did find out something in the end, from Skulker.

The front door of the Manson house opened and Mrs Manson stepped outside. She stopped when she saw Danny sitting there, looking depressed. She frowned at him and opened her mouth to tell him off, when she heard her daughter exclaim behind her.

"Danny! What are you doing here!"

Sam walked past her mother and grabbed his hand, pulling him up. Before her mother could say anything she dragged him away with her.

Danny let Sam pull him along for a while, not really cooperating with her but not really resisting her either. She finally let go of him when they reached the park and turned to look at him.

"Would you just loose that depressing scowl on your face, it makes _me_ look cheerful," she said to him.

He blinked at her. "What?"

"Stop wallowing in self pity! Stop pushing everybody away! Drop the misunderstood hero act!"

"What! But..."

"Yes! You´re not the only one who has suffered at his you know!"

"I know! It's just..."

"And stop saying it´s ALL YOUR FAULT! How can this possibly be your fault!"

"Well I..."

"WHAT!"

Danny dropped his head and looked at his feet.

"I... why don´t you hate me?"

Sam stared at him. "Hate you? How could I possibly hate you?"

Danny shook his head and sat down in the grass. Sam sat next to him.They were quiet for a while.

"Any ghost fights lately," she asked.

"Three," he answered, "The Box Ghost twice and one furry thing with claws." He rubbed the fading red line on his arm.

"Any sign of Turner?" Sam asked.

Danny shook his head. "I went into the ghost zone twice. Nobody had seen him."

Suddenly he smiled and Sam shuddered. There was something distinctly unpleasant about that smile.

"I think we don't have to worry about him though. Something Skulker said," he added.

"Since when do you talk to Skulker?"

"Oh he is quite agreeable once you remove him from his suit," Danny grinned darkly.

The thought of the little green blob proclaiming his greatness in hunting lifted his spirit a little bit. Sam shook her head.

"You don´t talk to us anymore Danny," she said, "You used to tell us about the ghost attacks. You didn't used to go into the ghost zone alone without at least telling us. Why don´t you talk to us?"

Danny hugged his knees. _Talk to Sam. Tell her how you feel._

"Get out Jazz," he thought to himself. He didn´t look at Sam.

"I´m scared," he said finally, "I´m afraid I´m turning into.. you know who."

"You are not turning into your jerky future self, you moron. Didn´t you tell us you needed Vlad´s ghost half to do that?"

"This is different. This is me. I´m afraid of what I could do if I ever pick up a feeling like that again."

"Earl Turner was controlling you! You couldn´t help yourself. That wasn´t you."

"That was me alright. It was the fear. Remember Spectra? She was right, it was like a drug. And I wanted more of it. I would have hurt Lisa to get it too. I almost did that again a few days ago."

"How can an evil ghost like Spectra ever be right? She is _evil_. You´re not! There is a difference."

"But..."

"Fine. It´s a drug. You´re an addict. So deal with it, we're there for you, Jazz it there for you! You don't have to do this all by yourself, nobody can. You´re not the first to go through something like this. And get some sleep while you´re at it."

He looked at her. "I don´t like to sleep," he muttered, "I keep killing her in my dreams."

They sat in the grass silently and watched the people going by. The sun was climbing and warming their skin. Danny felt a drowsiness overcoming him. He was just so tired. He leaned a bit and closed his eyes to shut out the light of the sun that was hurting his eyes. Only for a moment, he thought as he leaned even closer to Sam. He felt his head hit something soft and he sighed.

Tucker had been looking for his friends the whole morning. He had checked Danny´s house first and had been surprised to hear Danny had left hours ago. Where to? We don´t know. Try Sam. So he had gone to the Mansons, to be told by an annoyed Mrs Manson that yes, Danny had shown up at their doorstep at seven thirty in the morning and he and Sam had left. He tried to call them but neither of them picked up their phone.

So he had tried every place he could think of and finally the park. He hadn´t thought they would be there, because Danny had been avoiding the park like the plague. But they were right there. Sam was sitting on the hill, a little bit away from the path and prying eyes. Danny was lying on the ground, his head on her thigh, his eyes closed. He was sleeping. Peacefully.

* * *

_Fluff! _:-) 

_Alright so what did happen to Turner? I decided on a nice evil little epilogue for that. Earl Turner got way to little attention anyway. _


	19. Epilogue

A/N: Tying loose ends here! I even figured out what to do about the heads...:) I feel kinda stupid forgetting about those, so I decided to add it to the epilogue and it's actually better than it was. So thanks for mentioning it!

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

Epilogue

The ghost zone. An eerie green light, swirling, shifting, changing. Cold too. Hundreds, thousands of doors. Islands appeared, seemingly floating into nothingness, best avoided. He just drifted. Sometimes he made himself go faster, of change direction but it made no difference. No difference at all, the scenery stayed the same. He didn't know how long he had been there. Was it only hours? Months? Years?

He was terribly lonely. He wasn't used to be all by himself for so long. He missed his little friends. They didn't talk much, but they looked nice. Pretty girls. He smiled and tried to lose himself in his memories, to try and relive some of the excitement he had felt when his knife had cut their throats.

He had always made sure they knew what was coming to them, their terror fueling his ecstacy. That foolish ghost boy had felt it too. Earl grinned. It would only be a matter of time before the boy realized there was only one way to fulfill his need.

He had learned early in life that he could see things others couldn't. He saw dead people. People being killed, murdered, slaughtered in wars. They were everywhere if you knew where to look. Only when he grew up he had realized that he could add to it, make his own composition, play out his own nice little scenes. They would be there forever. That was his legacy.

He really needed to get out of there, but he didn't know how, or if it was even possible. He had seen other ghosts floating by at a distance earlier, but it was very quiet now. The green around him started to irritate him.

And then the scenery did change. There were less and less doors, no more islands and the green background seemed to fade. Only one door remained and it was open. Curiously, he advanced and peered inside. It seemed to be some sort of cellar of cave, it's rocky floor dusty and dark, it's walls seemingly made of the same material. But here and there he could see masonry, old and worn. It was an artificial cave, carved out somewhere in the rocky ground. It seemed oddly familiar and he entered to take a good look. The door slammed behind him and when he turned around, he saw that is was gone. Someone giggled.

"Who is there," he yelled, "Show yourself!"

Torches on the wall, which he only now noticed, sparked to life and started burning, giving off an orange glow. Earl squinted in the suddenly bright light and tried to see what it was that was placed alongside the wall on some sort of pedestals. And then he grinned when he saw where he was, his eyes growing accustomed to the light. He was home.

He put himself on the ground and started walking between the torches and the pedestals. Each pedestal contained a head of one of his little friends. There were twenty of them in total, their eyes glazed, the look of terror still locked on their faces. As he walked between them the heads turned, as if following him. He stopped in surprise. They had never done _that _before. Someone giggled again and he swirled, but still there was nobody there.

"Oh Earl."

"Eeeearl."

"Play with us Earl?"

The voices echoed in the cave. He stood very still. The torches flickered and for the first time in his life, or after life, fear started to enter his system. He looked at the heads again and they smiled at him. He started to tremble.

"We've been waiting for you Earl", the heads hissed, "We want to play now. Didn't you want to play with us?"

As he backed away the heads rose up from their pedestals and came at him, forming bodies as they went. Their eyes started glowing red and Earl realized they were feeding of _his _fear.

"Get away from me," he croaked.

He looked at their familiar faces, searching for one in particular.

"Rosa," he said pleadingly when he saw her, "Rosa we were friends..."

The ghost of a girl of about fourteen stepped forward, blond hair waiving around her green, ageless face, her red eyes glowing brightly in anticipation.

"We were friends," she hissed, "Until you murdered me! I've been waiting for twenty years, I knew you would show up eventually!"

They closed in on him, he felt them touch him, enclose him, _enter_ him. They seeped through his skin and invaded every cell of his being. Then they touched his brain and Earl screamed as he was shredded apart.

* * *

Skulker had been following the stupid ghost for a while, more out of lack of an interesting prey than anything else, when he had seen him enter Rosa's liar. He shook his head and turned around. 

"Women," he muttered as the screaming started.

* * *

_This is it, I finished it! I hope you enjoyed this all as much as I did. Looking back on it, I can see what I would do differently now. For instance, I should have put in another chapter from the killer's point of view. That would have been fun (Yes, that _is_ my idea of fun). I also should have taken more time to introduce the second murder victim._

_Many thanks to the people who took the time to read this and special thanks to all my reviewers, who gave constructive criticism, pointed out blatant mistakes or just generally cheered me on:_

_Plushiemon, Writer's-blockDP, Rakahn, Samantha Seldowitz, Lady-Razza, magpie8spook, Shadewolf7, Shonaiula, Soului, Ali Phantom, peppymint, FunkyFish1991, GhostAnn, Sasia93, PotterPhan21, Lil chap welsh nd proud, I Collect Bananas, DP fan._

_You rock!_


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